


love and other depictions of violence

by outofcontextbucky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky - Freeform, BuckyBarnes - Freeform, F/M, Lots of Sex, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, PornWithPlot, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Sex, buckysmut, originalcharacters - Freeform, theresomuchsexinthis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 06:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19806331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outofcontextbucky/pseuds/outofcontextbucky
Summary: (AU) Kelsey Cruz is happy with her life fighting alongside the Avengers, but when they get a call claiming Bucky's back in business, Cap sends her to watch over him far away from New York. She knows sex wasn't part of the job description, but whatever.(currently ongoing) (captain america: tws non-compliant) (ca:cw non-compliant, too) (basically forget everything you know)





	1. Chapter 1

**BEFORE WE START, FULL DISCLOSURE**

If you read my Peter/Mj fic, this is not like that at all. 

I started writing this while I was high, a few months before Endgame came out, so I don't even remember some parts.

I originally just wanted an o/c and Bucky smutty ass relationship, then kind of gave it a plot.

I ended up giving the plot, the character development, the symbolism, the inner battles, the story arches, a lot of thought, and it became this whole ass thing, the longest thing I've ever written.

It’ll come together in the end.

Graphic depictions of sex and violence.

Smut at chapter 6 and 11.

Constructive criticism is awesome, please tell me so I can improve.

Thank you for reading.

*chapters with scott and peter in it havent been published yet


	2. a short introduction

The bed was unmade, the sunlight just filtering in delicately in soft rays hitting the wooden floors, bouncing off the surfaces littered with books, random food, news articles, photographs. By the kitchen there was untouched food, and by the window sill, an unshaved, unbathed Bucky, an open book in his hands. Spanish music blared from outside, people walking through the bright streets, chatter ensuing.

It was the most peace he had felt in a while, at the same time an enormous amount of unrest living in his chest. He flipped through the pages of the book in his hand, eyes moving through the articles he found and stuck to his book. It was surreal, reading about his own death. Reading about the deaths he’d caused. Reading about Steve. About Natasha. Tony. He ran his metal hand through his freshly cut hair and sighed.

The unrest in chest grew bigger.

***

“They’re blowing up your place for sure.” 

Kelsey groaned as they walked away from the tall building. “Aw, fuck, I left my iPod there. And the dress I wanted to wear to the party tonight.”

“Well, next time, don’t tell the Secretary of State to fuck off,” Nat replied to her, pushing some of her red hair behind her ears. “And don’t worry, I got a lot of stuff you can borrow at the compound.”

“Coming from you?” Kelsey laughed as they continued to walk towards their car, the tapping of their heels in sync, their strides long. “Fuck them, I’ll say it again. They were gonna deport me. Jesus.”

“Maybe if we wore more cleavage to the court trial,” Nat hummed as she started the car.

“Next time I’ll come with my entire tits out,” laughed the other girl, buckling up her seatbelt. “Like we just didn’t fucking save an entire city from a racist genocidal old man.”


	3. Chapter 3

Kelsey had hated Tony Stark almost her entire adult life. She had first seen his name on a missile in Japan, in the cave she had experiments done on her when she was 19. She saw the familiar font again on the gun that killed her parents. Again on a bomb before it detonated and killed her vigilante group back in Asia. 

But the next time he saw his name, it accompanied a photograph, and it was on the cover of Time magazine. She felt insulted the first time she saw it, she remembered clearly shoplifting a copy of the issue and read about it when she got to her old dingy apartment, her blood boiling with every excerpt of his Tony was a hero, Tony was a genius, Tony was millionaire. 

Until the big fight in Uganda, right after the Vibranium bullshit went down in Indonesia. Tony Stark flew right in, in his Iron Man suit, and Kelsey had no time to be mad at him, to run her mouth and tell him he killed nearly everyone she loved, because people were shooting at her, and Tony fired at them.

It was funny, because now, Kelsey was at a fancy party on the rooftop of Avengers Tower, in a dress that probably cost more than she did, clinking glasses with Tony Stark and the rest of his superfriends.

“Hey, Kelsey, welcome home!” came a voice from behind her, cutting through the noise of the party.

“Hey, Ms. Potts,” she smiled and gave her a hug.

“It’s Mrs. Stark soon,” Tony said with a shrug as Pepper ignored him with an eye-roll, turning to Steve and Sam to hug them next. Tony faked an appalled face. 

The night was buzzing. Truly buzzing. And so were all of them after taking a shot of whatever it was that Thor gave them. It hit just as hard as any punch she’d ever taken.

“God, I miss getting drunk,” Steve sighed as Kelsey clinked glasses with Thor and Wanda. 

“You can’t get drunk?”

“Nope, part of the super soldier experiments,” he shrugged. “But I don’t miss the hangovers.”

Bruce came in with another tray of shots.

“These are from Earth, I promise.” Everyone laughed, and everyone kept laughing, for hours and hours on end. The bar was free-flowing, the energy was electric. It was so easy to forget that these people, laughing and lounging with their feet up as the crowds cleared were superheroes who have saved the world multiple times.

“Okay, now you feel that pressure near your palm?” Tony told her, a few hours later as he put the Iron Man hand on Kelsey’s and was teaching her how to fire.

“Yeah, should I just – OH MY GOD!” It fired into the air and almost hit Clint’s face. Steve, the only person who wasn’t completely drunk, was the only person who didn’t howl in laughter.

Kelsey pointed at her hand. “Tony take it off, take it off, I gotta take a piss,” she laughed, and the Iron Man glove left her hand. 

Kelsey tiptoed to the bathroom, barefoot now, drunkenly took a piss, and before she could even fully open the bathroom door, she could feel the energy had changed back at the lounge. The music had stopped, and Steve was asking a bunch of the tower’s security guards to escort the remaining guests out of the rooftop.

“What happened?” Kelsey tiptoed back and put on her shoes. It sunk in how inebriated she was when she put them on and realized they were heels, wobbling a bit. “I was gone for 2 seconds.”

Natasha noticed her wobbling and walked with her back inside the tower. “Tony got a call from Nick.”

“Inside, Nat,” Tony said rushing to the elevator, closing the doors as they all piled in. When they reached one of the tower’s R&D offices, Tony swiped through something on his phone then onto his computer, and Nick Fury’s voice filled the room in an instant.

“Mr. Stark, sorry to ruin your little party going on tonight, but SHIELD was broken into tonight.”

“What? Fury?” 

“Yes, Stark. 13 of my agents were killed, no blood, no trace.”

“Footage?” Tony’s voice asked quickly.

“Nothing. All in the blind spot I didn’t even know we had. And we weren’t just stolen weapons. We were stolen files. Everything we have on Hydra, a few scientists, and everyone in the Avengers Initiative.”    
“What?”

“I’m talking about you, Steve, Natasha, Thor, Banner and Clint. Everything. On paper and in the drives. Stuff we didn’t even show you.”

“Scan the ground for – ”

“Heat signatures. Yes, we know Stark. There are a few rats who didn’t go down with the ship when Hydra was finished last year. Get Rogers to the HQ as soon as you can, it’s possible his buddy’s back in business.”

The line cut off without a second after. Then there was silence.

Everyone was looking at Steve, who rubbed his face in stress. There was more silence. Everyone was asking the same question.

“Do you know where he is, Steve?” Natasha asked, arms crossed.

Steve sighed, exasperated. “No, I don’t,” he said quickly. “And if I did, what does it matter? Bucky saved my life, he doesn’t work for Hydra anymore. He’s not out to get us. Any of us.”

“Cap,” Tony said in a less than friendly tone. “Do you know where he is?”

“He’s not The Winter Soldier anymore.”

“Steve.” Colonel Rhodes said.

“I do. I think. I’m not sure. But I’m not turning his location over to SHIELD. And why would he want information on us anyway? What could he possibly want from us? Come on.”   
Bruce crossed his arms. “Cap, you gotta look at what Fury’s thinking. The man worked for Hydra. If anyone wants us wiped out...”

“We’re the only line of defense that works,” Natasha said.

“If he’s still working for whoever didn’t sink with the ship, then he’s going to want to wipe us out. All of us.”

Steve sighed. “He isn’t. He isn’t, I’m telling you.”

“Don’t lose your objectivity, Cap,” Tony told him.

Steve looked at him emptily. “Just tell Fury we’re heading over first thing tomorrow. I’m not turning over Bucky’s location. ” He stood up and left, and one by one, everyone else started to as well. Kelsey was in a daze. SHIELD infiltrated, she thought, but she was too drunk to feel anything. She couldn’t feel her feet, or her face.

The next thing she realized was that it was the next day. And that there was someone at her door. Gentle knocks, but enough to wake her up.

She stood up, realizing she was still in last night’s dress and make up, except with a bit of drool down the cheek.

It was Captain America, already showered and dressed. “Kels, I have to talk to you. I need a favor.”

“Okay, um,” she started, her brain dialed down to 10%. The Asgardian alcohol Thor served was… something else. “Let’s talk downstairs.” She grabbed a blanket from her room and walked to the tower’s kitchen and dining area beside Steve in a dazed, hungover silence.

Friday sensed their presence, pulled open the curtains to reveal the sun rising over Manhattan, and greeted them good morning.

Kelsey chugged a cup of water and began making some coffee with Tony’s strange and unnecessarily high tech coffee maker, blanket around her. “Alright, Cap, break it to me.”

Steve sighed, staring out into the sun rise and sitting down on one of the swivel chairs. “You remember what Fury said over the phone last night, right? About Bucky?” He looked at her.

“The infiltration?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know who in the Avengers can know, but I’ve given it thought, it should be you.”

“Me, what?”

“Listen to me first alright?” he said. Kelsey sat across him and shrugged. Cap trudged on. “Sooner or later, SHIELD is going to find out where Bucky is. We have a one-up on them. I know his apartment number, his street, his postal code.”

Kelsey furrowed her brows and Steve continued.

“I just don’t wanna be wrong about him,” he said silently, seriously. If there was one thing Steve was serious about, it was Bucky. “But I know he’s innocent, I swear, none of these people know him like I do. I was just thinking surveillance for a little while until we solve things over here.”

The coffee maker made a beep. Kelsey filled up her mug and looked back at the soldier sitting on the table.

She had only known him for a year, but Cap could ask her to jump without a parachute out of a helicopter, and she’d do it without hesitation. The kindest, purest man she knew. He could clock anyone out like  _ that _ , but he wouldn’t hurt a goddamn fly.

Kelsey took a deep breath and smiled. “You know I can’t say no to you, right Cap?”


	4. Chapter 4

Kelsey already missed Avengers Tower.

“You doing alright there?” Steve’s voice came from over the earpiece hidden in her ear.

“Yup,” she said. “Is this it?”

“178,” said Steve, “yeah. I guess.”

“Okay. Let me check.”

Kelsey turned the small knob on the glasses Tony gave her. “Yup, heat signatures show me someone’s in there.”

“Scan doorknob for prints?” Steve asked.

She hovered the small, thin ring over the doorknob of apartment 178.

“Yup. James Buchanan Barnes,” Kelsey said in whisper. She heard Steve take a deep breath.

“Alright. Alright. I gotta go, Fury’s still here. Watch out for him. And yourself too.”   
“Always do, Cap.”

The line cut. She raised the glasses up to her hair and unlocked the key to her new home for a while. Yup, she missed New York, but when she found out where Bucky was hiding?

“Cuba?” She couldn’t believe her goddamn earballs when Cap finally decided to tell the entire team of the plan just 24 hours ago.

Sam had made them all scrambled eggs and toast and Friday prepared a spread over the huge dining room table. Everyone was sipping their coffee in the Manhattan morning light and everything was delicious, but Kelsey could hardly swallow.

“In Havana,” Steve said.

Tony was buttering a piece of toast. “Oh, I’ve been. Gorgeous beaches. Even took my yacht.”

“I’ve been, too,” Kelsey said, “I killed in a drug lord in Guantanamo.”

Bruce looked up at her. “So, both awesome experiences.” She laughed. Everyone laughed.

Now, she was having some sort of Cuban bread as breakfast in her home for an indefinite period of time. It wasn’t bad, but it was lonely. There was music outside, and honking, and she could hear some chattering in Spanish, and it was a long time since she spoke it, but she could still understand it fine.

It only dawned on her now, as she stared at the small, empty apartment, flaking white brick walls, dirty windows, worn out wooden floors, light filtering in, how happy she had been the past months despite the Chitauri attack, the war in Uganda, almost getting paralysed, getting shot too many goddamn times to count, because she kind of found family. She found people who knew what she was going through and lived through it themselves. Now she was alone again. And scarily, it was all too familiar.

And what did she do when she was getting lonely? She put herself to work.

***

The last mission Kelsey had been on, she bombed a restaurant in Los Angeles. Underneath it was a tunnel that lead to a warehouse for remotely piloted drones created by a white supremacist group to eradicate a Mexican community in the west coast. 

The one before that, she saved a truckload of girls from child prostitution in Bangladesh, killed 2 men and sent 5 to jail.

On this mission, she was a baby sitter, and it was driving her insane. Doing nothing all the livelong day, listening to the walls, reading books, it was horrible for her. Torturous. And she actually had been tortured before.

It was three days in Cuba before she actually got a glimpse of Bucky.

She set up surveillance cameras in the hallway on the first day, made up a little chart of the SHIELD infiltration too, unpacking along the way, and passed out after a bottle of Cuban vodka. She cleaned up only on the second day, bought some groceries, some bed sheets and curtains for her place, installed a small microphone on the corner of Bucky’s window when the surveillance cameras showed he left his apartment and came back with food.

That was all. But on the third morning, she saw him in person, perhaps the first time ever. 

Kelsey didn’t know what the meant yet. She’d find out in a matter of months, of course, but now, she just knew she was on a mission.

He was handsome.  _ Oh, wow _ , was the first thing that came into Kelsey’s head when she saw him. He was taller than she expected, muscular, lean, scarred, but healing. He cut his hair and shaved too, and standing in front of her, he didn’t look like The Winter Soldier. He looked like a Bucky.

“Hey,” she said. It just slipped out of her mouth. “Know any good breakfast places?”

He smiled. It seemed tired and a little bit sad, but  _ oh, wow.  _ She didn’t know what she was expecting, but it wasn’t that. And definitely not anything that pretty.

“No, but the bakery near the main road is pretty good,” said Bucky.  _ Oh, wow.  _ She wasn’t expecting his voice to sound like  _ that _ either. 

“Oh, thanks,” was all she could muster as she slipped on some shoes, Bucky locking his apartment door. 

And that was it. That was her job there.

She had never been on a mission like this before, just surveillance, much less around someone hot. 

It would’ve been easier if she just had to kill him.

She was used to that.

“Why don’t you try painting?” Bruce told her over the phone the last time she had called and asked if she could just find a part time assassin job to keep her occupied. “Does it always have to be violence?”

“It’s what I’m good at, what can I do?”

And that was true; she wasn’t meant to be kept locked in a room for surveillance, the amount of things she  _ wasn’t _ doing was driving her insane.

And Bucky wasn’t exactly cooperating.

“Fun night?” she asked him on the fifth night she spent there, when she saw him again locking up his door one evening, all dressed up.

She expected a smile, or a conversation, maybe an invitation wouldn’t hurt, but man, she got a shoulder shrug. “Not really.” He seemed not to care, but found his response a little too short. “You?”

“Me neither,” Kelsey responded. That was it.

So when she felt him moving around the next room on her eighth day in Cuba, she timed her exit to the hallway perfectly when he left his apartment too.

“Weather seems great today, huh?” Bucky spoke first upon seeing her and it took Kelsey aback just a little bit.

Kelsey smiled at him, taking in his smile, his stature. “I prefer it a little warmer,” she said. “Still kind of chilly for February.”

“It’s warm out today, what are you talking about?” Bucky said. There was a bounce, a flirtatiousness in his voice today that Kelsey hoped she wasn’t just imagining because she was bored out of her mind.

He spoke again when Kelsey only responded with a laugh. “I’m heading down to the street market today.” He walked a little bit closer to her doorstep, very naturally, like he wasn’t just ignored all her advances the night before. “Were you heading down there too?”

Kelsey laced up her shoes and smiled. “I was just about to grab some lunch, I didn’t even know that was a thing. You wanna go grab some with me?” she said, standing up and walking next to him down the stairs calmly. He looked good. Like he had slept for the first time in a while, and she didn’t know him that well, but he did seem much happier today, a little less withdrawn. Like the Bucky that Cap would describe.

“Oh, I got the perfect place, just downtown,” he said as they stepped outside the apartment building into the afternoon sun. “Best stuff I’ve ever had.”

“Show me the ropes then,” smiled Kelsey. “I’m Mia, by the way,” she added, holding her hand out in the way she’d practiced on the plane ride. 

Mia Santiago, that’s the name Steve let her have. Puerto Rico-born, parents live in Florida. Liberal arts major. She didn’t agree with that part, but whatever.

“Bucky,” he said, almost a little proudly, smiling back at her, and it was  _ pretty,  _ she wasn’t ready for it.

“Cute name,” she smiled as they rounded the corner of their block and trudged on a little more. The colorful town was even more alive drenched in the afternoon light.

He chuckled a little bit, glancing at her from the side. She was looking at him when he did, still wondering who let him be this beautiful, but thankfully, when they reached the end of the block, Bucky stopped and pointed at a small door and opened it for her.

“It’s right up the stairs,” he said, following in after her through a small staircase, and on the top was a quaint restaurant, windows all around, with a great view of the street below it.

Bucky marched to the counter, watching her take in the vibrance of everything, walls, furniture, the decor. Kelsey’s mind immediately went to how she could just jump out the window in the event of an attempted kidnapping. “So, what are we having?” Bucky interrupted her thoughts.

“What’s the best stuff you’ve ever had? Get me some of that,” she responded. “I’ll just go take a seat over there.” Bucky smiled at her, and she couldn’t look away. Like he knew Kelsey gushed about it inside her head, it’s why he was doing it so often. She watched him pull out a few Cuban pesos from his wallet, watched his shoulders and arms move, watched him laugh with the lady, tell the lady how delicious the  _ empanadas _ were. Kelsey couldn’t believe this was Hydra’s killing machine.

“ _ Arroz con pollo, empanadas, y  _ plantains.” Bucky placed a few plates on the table in front of her. “Wait, let me get some...” he trailed off. Kelsey continued to stare. He was some goddamn eye candy. “Here, utensils and some tea.”

“ _ Muchos gracias, _ ” Kelsey smiled at him and took a bite. “Oh, wow holy fuck.”

Bucky chuckled a little too loudly. “What?  _ Holy _ fuck?”

“These are so damn good,” she said, chewing through a full mouth. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Can you say it again?” Bucky was still laughing.   
“What?” Kelsey swallowed. “Holy fuck?” Bucky laughed some more. “What’s so funny?”

He was still wheezing, he couldn’t even hold his spoon right. “I just–” he wheezed out, “I’ve never heard anyone say that before,” he continued to chuckle, covering his mouth and coughing a bit.

This was the fucking Winter Soldier. Wow.

“You okay over there?” Kelsey smiled at him, she couldn’t help but smile.

“Did you make that up?” Bucky earnestly asked her, sipping on some water to help clear out the coughing.

Kelsey furrowed her eyebrows, picking up a plantain on her fork. “Are you actually asking that?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he responded, taking another bite, mouth still in a wide grin. Kelsey couldn’t help but mirror it. “That was funny. You’re funny.”

“Are you okay? Are you dying?”   
“I almost snorted the  _ empanadas _ up my nose.”

“That is not a bad idea. You can snort them down when you’re hungry later.”

Bucky howled in laughter again, and she couldn’t stop watching him laugh. Real, earnest laughs, too, and the sound reverberated through her in a way, and he didn’t stop laughing for a while. Kelsey began to laugh too, watching him as she ate. She couldn’t stop watching him. Cap really put her on a mission just so she could get a boner.

“Stop making jokes. You’re killing me.” Bucky smiled at her when he finally calmed down a little. He chuckled as he scraped some rice on his plate.

“I wasn’t trying,” said Kelsey, cleaning off her plate.

“You’re done already?” Bucky eyed her plate. “It’s good, no?” Kelsey nodded, her mouth full. “Let me just finish these off, then I’ll show you the street market.”

“We kind of have this in Puerto Rico too, where I’m from,” said Kelsey, her eyes on Bucky, whose eyes were on her. “My mom’s were good but these are better,” she continued, lying fluently.

Bucky nodded, listening. “Why’d you move here?”

“Work opportunities,” she said, then smiled, convincing him. “Actually, that’s a lie. I followed a guy here.” Technically, that wasn’t a lie. She pat herself on the back for that.

“Oh?” Bucky sipped some water.

“We broke up,” she said, coming back to the lie, “it didn’t work out, so I moved here.”

“Not fun to talk about?”

Kelsey smiled. “It’s alright. How about you, what brought you to Havana?” 

She knew the answer, but it was fun to ask, fun to listen to how creative liars can get.

“You know, soul searching,” he said, somewhat convincingly, as he cleared off his plate. Kelsey wanted to laugh. “And I heard the beaches are beautiful. Ready to go?”

“Yep. Are we splitting the bill?”

“Please,” he smiled. “You insult me.”

Kelsey left the chair and followed Bucky down the stairs. “Let me get you some coffee at least.”

“How about tomorrow?” He said, jogging the last few steps down the stairs, holding the door open for her as she stepped out. 

“Tomorrow?”

“Sorry,” he said, laughing a little, she could tell he was downplaying the embarrassment he felt. “Was that not cool?” He crossed the street, watching her, and Kelsey followed closely.

“No, that was very cool,” she smiled. He smiled back. His eyes caught some sunlight as they walked through some trees and she noticed a little green in the blue of his eyes.

Bucky continued. “No, tell me,” he chuckled as they continued to walk on, the crowd nearing the park getting a little thicker, “how many days is the perfect time to wait to ask someone out again?”

“Highly debatable,” she responded with a smile, “but I don’t wait, I see something I like, and I go get it.”

“So, do you see anything you like?” Bucky looked at her. He was smiling just slightly. Kelsey smiled back. He knew what he was doing, and she did too, but it was working, and Kelsey, ever on her toes, forgot for a split second, that her actual mission was very different from what she wanted to do to him right now.

“Do you?” she finally responded. Bucky chuckled at her, pulling her just a bit closer by her shoulder when a few men passed by. Kelsey laughed in her head at the idea of Bucky thinking he needed to protect her given her… background.

It was a little bit livelier in the park when they arrived, rather than the street nearby their apartment, the corners filled with colorfully dressed people, children playing with toys they’d only ever seen in Cuba, old men playing an unfamiliar board game, people yelling in Spanish, trying to sell everything from fruits to underwear, and omnipresent salsa music. Omnipresent.

“It’s always so festive here for some reason,” Bucky said to her, eyes glazing over the spirited crowd. The cheerfulness was palpable. His hand wasn’t leaving her shoulder even when the crowds thinned out. A woman passed by, smiling at them. Kelsey greeted her in Spanish.

“Is it like this everyday?” She was smiling, still. The vibrations everyone exuded were infectious, and when she took a peak at Bucky, he was looking at her, the same cheerful expression on his face.

Bucky shrugged, leading her to a fruit stand, where he started checking out a bunch of mangoes. “I don’t know, actually, I went here same day last week.”

“You want to check it out with me tomorrow?” Kelsey said nonchalantly, then glanced up at him to find him smiling at her.

“So you do like what you see.”

Kelsey laughed, returning her attention to the fruits before her.

“That is very sweet,” said the man inside the stall to her in a very thick Spanish accent as she raised a mango in question. Kelsey nodded and loaded one more into a basket.

“You are a couple?” asked the man again, smiling at her. He yelled at someone happily from another stall before returning his attention to them again.

Kelsey laughed. “No, no,  _ el es mi vecino _ .”

“ _ Nos vemos bien juntos _ ? ” Bucky chimed in, laughing.

“ _ No lo escuches, _ ” she laughed back at him, handing him a few pesos as the man nodded. “ _ El es solo un vecino _ .”

Bucky chuckled as they left the stall, looking at Kelsey the entire time, reading her, watching her, knowing the way he was making her feel, and the play was supposed to be to get flustered, act mushy, because Mia Santiago from Puerto Rico was a sweet girl, kind of shy, but Kelsey Cruz from the Philippines just kept breaking free.

“Okay, now that was very uncool.” She laughed, smiling up at Bucky, tilting her head as the boy laughed back.

He nodded. “Really?”

“Yes.”

Bucky looked into the street, peering over some fresh coconuts. “Well, I’m old-fashioned!”

Oh, she knew that. More than he knows.

“Obviously,” she agreed, chuckling, then pointed at the coconuts. “Have you tried those? In Puerto Rico we just drink the juice right out of the thing.”

“Wait, no,” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t.”

“Come on, let me get this one for you,” said Mia, pulling out a bill from her pocket and paying the guy by the cart. He sliced the coconut in front of them and Mia couldn’t help but check Bucky’s face, but if he felt uneasy, he was hiding it well.

“Try it,” she told Bucky, handing him the entire coconut after thanking the guy in the stall. Bucky took the straw in his lips, and Kelsey caught herself thinking about how lucky that goddamn straw was.

His face lit up, and she smiled helplessly. “Was that enjoyable?” she laughed.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, smacking his lips. “That was good.” He smiled. “Holy fuck,” he added so forcibly and unnaturally, Kelsey nearly spewed the coconut juice as he handed it to her and she took a sip.

“It nearly went up my goddamn nose!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughed as Kelsey coughed between chuckles. “How did I do? Was that convincing?”

“No. Was that your first  _ bad word _ ?”

Bucky laughed some more, throwing his head back. “Oh, shut up.”

He was pretty. God, she was  _ fucked. _


	5. Chapter 5

There were 3 things now that Kelsey knew about Bucky that Steve didn’t tell her. 

The first thing was that he was smart. Really smart. Kelsey graduated college early  _ and _ summa cum laude, and she still thought Bucky was a fucking genius.

The second thing was that he loved kids. Every time they’d head out together, he’d always say hello to any kid he’d see on the street and ask them their names. So far there had been 12 children he became friends with.

The last, and most dangerous thing, was that Bucky Barnes had the sex appeal of seven Idris Elbas and four George Clooneys. It was as if God made a mistake creating him, because the way he spoke, laughed, looked, walked, even the way he fucking sipped tea exuded sex appeal in ways that she didn’t think was appropriate anymore. There was something about the fact that he was both reserved and flirtatious, both so private and honest, that added to the aura of charm he had. She realized this a few days after the first time they hung out, and Kelsey watched him put on a jacket just as they were about to head out and get dinner together. That was it. He was just putting on a jacket, a short movement by his arms and his shoulders, but it sent her. She couldn’t pinpoint why. Objectively, he wasn’t that handsome, but Bucky radiated a type of energy, a type of charm and allure that aroused something else in her stomach. And it was dangerous, because the more they spent time together, the more difficult it was to remember that her mission was to protect him and make sure he wasn’t working for Hydra, not to bed him. 

She didn’t know how much of this she was supposed to tell Steve.

“It’s cool, we’re friends now,” she said to him during their last phone call, trying to downplay the interactions they’ve had. “We’ve gone out for food a couple of times.”

“I don’t know why that makes me so goddamn happy.”

“You got any updates for me? On the case?” Kelsey asked, a little eager, because truth be told, she didn’t like lying to Bucky about herself, and as soon as SHIELD wasn’t on his tail anymore, she could go back to the compound and do more exciting things with her life. She missed the shoot-outs and the mortal danger.

“Nope, nothing,” Steve sighed, “but we’re getting closer, I think. They just involved Stark, now if any heat signatures close to the weapons that were stolen appear in the atmosphere, we’ll find out.”

Kelsey rubbed her hair in frustration. “Hurry it up, okay? I miss New York.”

“What, you don’t like hanging out with Bucky?”

“I do, it’s just...”  _ It was getting harder not to fuck him.  _ “Just hurry up.” 

“Of course. We all miss you over here.”

“Take care, Cap.”

“You too, okay? Watch out for danger.”   
Kelsey dropped the call.

_ Watch out for danger.  _ That was difficult to do, because the most imminent threat right now was that she had plans to get dinner and get drunk with Bucky, and Kelsey didn’t know how long she could hold off kissing him, especially now that drinks were on the table. She cleared up her table and her Stark phone, hiding all evidence of her double life, then locked up her door before knocking on Bucky’s.

“You ready to go?” She said through the door.

Bucky’s voice came from inside the room. “It’s open!” he called out. Kelsey paused. It was going to be her first time in his apartment. The danger heightened. Her mind jumped from scenario to scenario, but her feet took her inside.

Bucky was clearing up a small table, and he glanced and smiled at her for a couple seconds before he returned to cleaning up. Kelsey looked around.

“You know what, it’s surprisingly clean.”

Bucky laughed. “Did you expect it to be dirty?”

“Yes, honestly.”   
“I’m offended!”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” said Kelsey, and Bucky laughed again.

The streetlights in his apartment, for some reason, hit better than it did in Kelsey’s room, and it was a little roomier, too. He had his bed by one of the windows, a few potted plants and books on the floor beside it, some clothes hung on a rack, and there was a radio on top of a small bedside table. The busiest part was probably the kitchen, where his shelves were lined up with spices and jars of stuff, pots and pans and cutlery littered his countertop, and a stool stood there beside the window. They had the same white brick walls, wooden floors and big windows, but the air was different. This felt more like a home.

Kelsey sat down on the corner of his bed, watching him rinse off a plate and put away a few stuff into his fridge. His bed was unmade, his sheets ruffled and his pillows were battered, and if he tried hard enough, she swore she could make out his scent from where she was sitting. Her mind wandered, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be under him, lying naked under his sheets.

“You ready to go?” Bucky spoke, and Kelsey’s head turned to him. “Mia?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. Bucky looked at her then glanced at his bed. Then glanced at her lips. 

“What’re you looking at?”

Kelsey stood up. “Nothing. Let’s go?”

Bucky didn’t move. If anything, he got a little closer to her, even. If they both leaned in at that moment, they could’ve kissed, and if there’s one thing she wanted to do, it was that. How easy it would’ve been, how fucking good it would feel to lick his goddamn mouth, but instead, she walked to the door and nodded at him to follow.

He smiled, his eyes weren’t in it, like he was saying “damn it” in his mind over and over, because she knew, he knew, and God knew they were thinking the same thing.

“Are you hungry?” she said. “I’m not. But I am ready to chug down some cocktails.”

“No,” he smiled, exiting after her and locking his door. “Let’s do it.” 

They walked out of the building, and Friday night out in Havana looked like a dream, dark skies, but the streets lit with club lights, street lights, and big smiles. The excitement was infectious, and Kelsey found herself smiling at the people, but she found Bucky smiling at her.

“You know something, Mia,” he said to her as they walked down the street, passing bars with loud music and cheering.

Kelsey looked up at him. “What?”

“I know you know you’re gorgeous,” he said, “it’s never been in question...”

_ He thinks I’m gorgeous?  _ “It’s a fact of life,” she shrugged as Bucky laughed. “You’re really cute too.”

“I know that,” he said, laughing, “but I’m saying, you look extra great tonight.”

This is the first time she’d seen him awkward, and Kelsey grinned. “Thank you! I put on lipstick, if you didn’t notice.” It was Nat’s lipstick, and she gave it to her as she packed in case, verbatim, “ _ you spot a cute Cuban boy. _ ”

“Nat, she’ll be on a  _ mission _ ,” Tony had scoffed at her as Nat rolled her eyes. “Oh, you know, who am I to talk? Go get yourself some man candy.”

And she was. Not exactly the kind they were expecting, but she was.

Bucky smiled at her. “I did. First thing I noticed.”

Kelsey cocked an eyebrow. She was wearing a low-cut top today. “ _ Really _ ? Not...” She pointed at her chest and Bucky laughed a little too much a little too loud, as his eyes glazed over her chest. Kelsey didn’t mind. She’d throw all her clothes off if she could.

“No, actually, Mia,” he said, laughing, a heavenly sound, “you have great lips.” He smiled. “I’m a fan.”

“Thanks,” she responded, “I like your lips too.”

He smiled. “I like your hair.”   
“I like your eyes,” she said, “what color are they, really?”

“My license says blue,” he said as they rounded up a corner and walked a little more onto a busier street. “I like your boobs.”

Kelsey snorted, then laughed out loud. “Thank you! I always thought they were like, tiny.”

“They’re perfect. Great boobs. 10/10.” He smiled at her. She felt warm.

“I like your ass.”

“Aw, really?” He turned around and touched his ass cheeks, and Kelsey laughed. “Thank you. I never get complimented on my ass. I like your legs.”

“Well, I like your arms.”

Bucky’s brows shot up, “Wow. Thanks.” He said, stumbling with his words a little bit. Kelsey wondered what route he was going to take; keep the arm a secret or come up with a weak excuse for a silver arm. She looked at him as he said, “You know, I have this, um… thing...”

“Is it the one that hangs between your legs? You know, that’s called–”

Bucky burst out laughing. “No, no, I...” he licked his lips. “I have kind of a prosthetic arm?”

Oh, he took that route. “What happened?” Kelsey said.

“I got into an accident a while back,” he said, “I was on this trip with my best friend, and I fell off this mountain side.”

Kelsey raised her eyebrows, but instead of asking, “Was his name Steve?” she put on a worried face and asked, “You’re okay now?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, “and it’s kind of a, high tech prosthetic, so you can’t even tell.” Bucky looked at her. “Does that bother you?”   
She smiled at him. “No,” she said. And it was true, and they walked in silence for a little bit, as Bucky smiled back at her and kept the smile for a little while, and for some reason, right then are there, Kelsey wanted to stop lying and tell him who the hell she was and why she was there. It suddenly hit her that at that moment that if and when her identity would become known to him, Bucky would feel betrayed and hurt. He might get mad at her. He might not want to talk to her. Why did that scare her?

“We’re here,” he said, his arm on her shoulder, guiding her into a bar she didn’t realize they had reached.

“Yup, I need a drink,” she said, chuckling a bit, and Bucky smiled at her.

“Do you want to get some beer first or?”

“Just get me a Long Island on a lot of rocks and like, four shots of vodka, nothing top-shelf,” she said, and Bucky cocked his eyebrows, but Kelsey didn’t stay long enough around to hear him reply, and she took a seat and a deep breath.

She didn’t notice this, but the bar was a nice one. Really cheap, compared to American bars, but well-decorated, lights just perfectly dimmed and music wasn’t annoyingly loud. Bucky had chosen it specifically on Yelp, which he had learned about especially for Kelsey since for the entire week, they’d been going out to eat nearly everyday.

Kelsey thought he just knew his way around.

“Thanks,” she said to him after a few minutes as he put down a tray of drinks and a flight of shots, and sat down.

“Will I need to take care of you when you hurl after this?” Bucky asked.

“Oh, this is just round one,” Kelsey smiled as Bucky laughed.

“So I will be holding back your hair for you over the toilet tonight?”

“I will not,” she said, clinking glasses with Bucky and taking a shot. “Let’s bet on it.”

Bucky smiled, sipping his drink. “Alright, game on.”   
“If I hurl,” she began, looking around the bar, “I’ll sing you a song at the karaoke bar over there. If I don’t, you will. With choreography.”

“Alright,” Bucky smiled and reached out his hand, “deal. You better get ready.”

Kelsey shook it, grinning back at him. “Cheers,” she said, clinking glasses with him and taking another shot, the gin burning her throat in a strangely pleasurable way.

“You are going through those drinks  _ fast _ ,” laughed Bucky, his eyes bright and amused. “You must really want to sing a song for me.”

“Bucky, you’re embarrassing yourself,” she said, raising another shot glass and downing it.

“I am not looking forward to taking care of you tonight,” Bucky shook his head, and Kelsey stared at him, her vision getting blurred and the noise of the bar getting a little duller. She could feel the alcohol brewing in her stomach, getting ready to go into her veins.

Kelsey leaned in on the table closer to him. She stared at Bucky some more, who just smiled at her. His mouth was pink as hell, his eyes were still in this weird blue-green color. “I really want to see your arm,” she found herself saying.

Bucky smiled. “Okay, I’ll show you, but don’t freak out.” When he pulled his sweater’s sleeve up, Kelsey didn’t really know what to expect, because she knew he had an arm from Hydra, she just wasn’t sure what it looked like or felt like. Honestly, it wasn’t that weird.

Kelsey stared at it for a while, honestly because she was tipsy and none of it was actually registering in her head, but the first thought she had, she blurted right out. “I’m going to touch it.”

“No, it’ll explode,” Bucky said, voice dripping with sarcasm, and Kelsey laughed. She took her hand and hovered it over his, glancing back up at Bucky, who nodded at her with a chuckle before she touched it.

Kelsey held one of his fingers in her fist.

“Can you feel stuff?” she asked.

“Kind of,” he said, “are you drunk?”

“Do you have a prosthetic penis, too?” Kelsey ignored him, and Bucky burst out laughing, almost spitting out the drink he was sipping on.

He took a while, and Kelsey looked up at him and laughed too. “Are you into that?” he asked. “Because I’m sorry, I don’t have one of  _ those _ .”

Kelsey was still laughing. “Well, bummer.”

“I do have a few toaster ovens you might be into,” said Bucky almost earnestly, and Kelsey wanted to slap herself for thinking of Vision almost immediately.

She laughed for a while, and Bucky laughed with her, watching her, not nearly as hysterical as she was, but still grinning earnestly, and she only forced herself to stop because her stomach was hurting. She sipped some more of her cocktail.

“You know, I do think you might be getting a shot at a song,” Kelsey hiccuped drunkenly, and Bucky laughed, and before he could respond, she interrupted him. “Maybe we should go sing now,” she said, mostly to herself, a little to excitedly, but still to Bucky, who was still sipping on his drink.

Bucky laughed. “Now?”

“Yeah,” smiled Kelsey, drinking more of her cocktail, realizing she was at that point of drunkenness when the alcohol starts to taste like water. “We should play darts.”

“There’s a dartboard over there, I think I saw–” Bucky started, but Kelsey was already on her feet taking another shot as she left the table on the way to the dart boards. Bucky sat on the stools, watching her sway her way through the crowd, talking to people along the way. He should’ve been annoyed at the very least, but he found himself actually smiling as he took the last vodka shot and picked up both their drinks from the table.

Kelsey was making friends with 2 Cuban guys and 1 Cuban girl around their age, maybe a little younger, when he got there.

“Bucky!” she called to him, grinning, and he put down their drinks on the table on the side, watching her laugh with the three locals. “Come on, are we playing or what?”

“Yes we are,” he smiled.   
That smile. That goddamn smile. She knew she was fucked.


	6. Chapter 6

**warning: graphic sex** _  
_

This was familiar to Kelsey. The vomit-y feeling, the throbbing headache, the unfamiliar room. She’d known this since she was a teenager, and it was nothing new, but when she woke up the next morning, with no memory of how she got home or where she was, panic filled her chest, and she sat up in bed as soon as she gained consciousness.

She was in Bucky’s room. Still clothed, thankfully, but not in last night’s clothes. Bucky’s, naturally.

“Buck?” she managed to croak out, her voice hoarse, her throat dry as hell. There was a trashcan by her feet and a water on the bedside table, and she drank it so hastily, the water dripped down her chin.

Kelsey panicked, to say the very least.

She stood up, head rushing and mind racing, not sure whether to check in with the Avengers first, check if Bucky was looking through her files, or pee, because she really, really needed to pee, so she did, and after, Kelsey stood there, in hopeless silence, before her hungover body failed her, and she collapsed back into Bucky’s bed, taking a deep breath and accidentally catching his scent.

It gave her anxiety, how it was so familiar, and just as she started to panic again after a brief few seconds of peace, the doorknob rattled open, and Bucky entered his apartment, bag in hand.

“Hey,” he smiled at her. “How do you like your eggs?”

_How do you like your eggs?_

Kelsey stared at him in brain dead silence, and he just smiled at her, so warmly, so softly, you’d think she didn’t look like hell. She did. To him, she just looked sexy.

“What?” he asked. “You don’t like eggs? I have bread too.”

“Bucky,” Kelsey began, sitting on his bed, suddenly feeling very small, “what happened?”

Bucky stopped unloading the contents of his bag and leaned against his kitchen. The morning light from his huge windows hit him so perfectly, hair tousled, mouth swollen from sleep.

He began slowly. “You don’t remember anything?”

“I don’t.”

“Like, at all?” he asked again, like he was dreading the answer he heard. 

“I–I remember _some_ things…”

Bucky adjusted his jaw. “What was the last thing you remember?”

“The… the darts?”

He cocked his eyebrows, and paused, turning back to his kitchen and began heating up a pan. Finally he responded. “So you weren’t conscious at all last night?”

Kelsey leapt from his bed and walked gingerly towards him. “Did we have sex?” she said, finally asking the question that was bothering her the most, as Bucky cracked two eggs over a sizzling pan.

He looked back at her when she asked. “Of course not, Mia,” he said, offense almost painted all over his face. “You really think that of me?”

“Help me out,” she said, sitting down on one of the chairs, her arms on the small table. “And did I puke? Do I owe you a song?”

Bucky laughed. Finally. He stirred around in his pan. “You know,” he said, taking a plate and scraping what looked like scrambled eggs onto the plate, “I could easily lie and say you did just to get myself out of this, but no, actually.”

Kelsey laughed, prodding at the eggs with a fork he handed her. “I told you I could hold my alcohol.”

“You literally forgot about everything,” said Bucky, slicing up some bread for the both of them, “that’s not a win.”

“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked, taking a slice from him. “Why are you being so weird?”

Bucky shrugged. “Okay,” he said, sitting on the table across her, spreading some butter on a piece of bread. He took a deep breath. “Well, after you played darts, we dance a little,” he said, smiling, “you’re a very good drunk dancer, by the way, all things considered.”

Kelsey found herself smiling. “Shut up,” she said, taking a bite of the eggs.

“And then, you made friends with even more people, and you danced with them, and you forced me to dance,” Bucky laughed. “It was awful. Then we bought some _medianoches_ out on a cart, then I had to carry you, because you fell down while we were walking back home, then you told me you had a secret you really wanted to tell me but couldn’t, and then you kissed me.”

Kelsey gulped, flashes of familiarity in her mind, but they were still all so hazy. Better than that could’ve gone, but still bad. She was flushing, she could tell.

“That’s it?” she said after some silence between them.

“No,” he laughed, “God, no. You then said that you had a crush on me, and then I told you I liked you, and then you asked if you could stay in my room, and then you tried to have sex with me.”

Kelsey covered her mouth, horrified. “Oh my God, like a rapist?” 

She was a murderer, but she was no _rapist_. She’d kill a man in broad daylight but she would never force herself on anyone who didn’t want to.

“No,” Bucky laughed, “Jesus, Mia. No. We were just kissing, it was all I wanted, but then you started removing your–”

“Oh, I’m going to die of embarrassment.” Kelsey rubbed her head and hid in her hands.

“Your jacket,” Bucky pressed on.

Kelsey took a deep breath. “Okay, thank God.”

“And then the rest of your clothes.”

“Oh my fucking God!” Kelsey laughed.  
Bucky smiled, laughing back at her. “I just told you no, you were drunk, then I dressed you up with my stuff because you passed out.”

Kelsey was laughing out of pure embarrassment by then, and Bucky just stared at her, amused. She finally came out from behind her hands and stared back at him. He was smiling at her, finishing a slice of bread and gulping down some coffee, his mouth exuding glee. He handed her the other cup.

“Here,” he said, breaking the silence. “Do you want some water?”

Kelsey nodded. “I think I’m going back to sleep.”

“You’re free to stay here if you want.” Bucky handed her a glass, and she gulped it down too quickly. Bucky refilled it for her again.

Kelsey took a sip. “I’m sorry.”  
“What for?” Bucky asked, sipping some coffee.

“For… the whole thing. It sounds like a huge mess. Just...” Kelsey began, thinking about her next words carefully. “Just pretend nothing happened. Forget I ever said and did all that.”

He took a deep breath, and his smile faded a little bit. Like he wanted to pick up where they left off.

“Okay,” he said finally.

Kelsey looked at him for a bit, searching his face for any sort of resentment, but all she saw was the green of his eyes in the morning light, and the swell in his red lips, and the shadow growing on his chin perfectly. Morning Bucky. Unshowered, unshaved Bucky. Kelsey wanted to ram her mouth on his, finish what they started, but instead, she spoke.

“I’ll just crash for a bit more,” she gestured towards his bed, and Bucky nodded, letting her stand up and plop herself back into his unmade bed. She inhaled the smell of his sheets, of his pillows, and her stomach felt fuzzy. Even with her eyes closed, she felt the curtains getting drawn, and she heard Bucky cleaning up a little before she felt the weight on his bed shift.

She opened her eyes, and Bucky was lying down next to her.

“Can you just...” he began, very calmly, taking deep breaths. “Can you just level with me?”

Kelsey couldn’t even make out a word before he continued.

“I just want to know, I want you to be honest,” he said. “Tell me you don’t like me if you really don’t. Just so I know where I stand and what I can do and say.” Bucky paused, shrugging. “I’ve been trying to kiss you all week, Mia. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.” She did. “It’s just… I don’t get it, and I’m trying to, but it doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t add up. Just tell me exactly what you want to happen, because I’m fine with whatever that is, I promise.”

Kelsey wanted to pause time. Analyze, reflect, type up a draft, call Bruce or Steve, but God, what was she supposed to do now that she couldn’t phone a friend? Bucky was right, it didn’t add up, solely because he didn’t know all the variables, and she definitely wasn’t going to tell him. 

So she kissed him. She propped herself on top of him, watching him watch her put her legs on either side of his, and kissed him square on the mouth soberly, making sure she felt everything, the movement of his top lip and his bottom lip, the wetness of his warm tongue, the warm air from his nose as he inhaled and exhaled against her cheek, his calloused hand and metal arm rubbing softly against her hips, and every second she felt every part of that, she wanted it all the more.

Because that’s what Mia Santiago would’ve done. That’s how she’d explain herself later. She knew she was going to take heat for it when the Avengers found out, but now she had an excuse. She was staying in character. 

“Mia.” Bucky pulled away to say. “Tell me.”

“I’m not drunk anymore,” she said quietly, kissing him again, a little bit more roughly, more hungry this time, her mouth just up against his, trying to taste as much of Bucky as she could. Her hands found his hair, _God, his hair,_ and she buried her fingers in it, sucking on his bottom lip just as Bucky turned her over so that now, he was on top. His hands snaked their way under her shirt, rubbing at her waist, her ribcage, over her breasts as he kissed her back, and Kelsey could feel him get hard against her crotch.

Bucky pulled away from her mouth, his lips red and swollen, and his eyes, hungry. “Tell me what you want. I want to make sure you want this.”

“Jesus,” Kelsey laughed, snaking her hands under his sweater and tugging it off of his torso. “This really isn’t consent enough for you?” Bucky peeled off his sweater and Kelsey whispered as she rubbed his crotch. “Don’t worry about going rough on me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said back, kissing her again, his hands fully removing the t-shirt he lent her, then taking her tits and massaging them slowly as his mouth kept licking hers. One of his hands left her breasts and went down her shorts, taking them off of her and rubbing her pussy over her soaked underwear.

“Fuck me, please,” Kelsey managed to say between moans, as Bucky licked the space between her tits.

Bucky put her panties to the side and slid a warm finger down her clit and back up again, rubbing it softly, and Kelsey melted onto his hand. “You’re this wet and I barely even started on you,” he said, kissing her gently on the lips and then watched her throw her head back and listened to the sharp breaths and quiet moans that escaped her mouth.

“Do you like that?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Do you like this?” He asked as he slid two warm fingers into her pussy, and Kelsey moaned violently as he curved it insider her to perfectly hit her where she wanted him to. “Tell me, do you like that?”

“Yes, Bucky,” she managed to croak out, as she bucked her hips against his hand.

“Say my name.”

He kissed her mouth one last time before sucking on her tits. “Say my name,” he said again, pulling his fingers out of her pussy and rubbing her clit teasingly.

“Bucky, please,” she whimpered, dripping wet by now, the sheets under her ass soaked. 

“Please what?” he asked, kissing her other breast, his hand rubbing the sides of her pussy so painstakingly slowly.

Kelsey couldn’t think. The heat in her feet and groin took over. “Please fuck me,” she whimpered as his finger touched her clit. “Bucky. Fuck me, Bucky. Fuck me.”

He smiled at her, watched her whimper, her tits wet with his saliva, her mouth sore from kissing him, before he trailed down to her clit and began eating her out, and when she moaned his name, he slid in two fingers and arched it the way she liked, her moans getting louder and louder.

“I’m gonna fucking cum,” Kelsey panted, her legs spread so wide now, “if you keep doing that.” Bucky licked her clit roughly and pumped his fingers faster.

“No, I’ll tell you when you cum,” he said, voice so low Kelsey moaned even more, the sound putting even more heat into her groin, as he continued to make her squirm on his fingers and his mouth. Her moans became louder, and when he felt her getting tight on his fingers, he pulled them out, kissed her on the mouth as she moaned, and he whispered, “Not yet, baby.”

Kelsey’s entire body was so numb with pleasure. “Fuck me. Bucky, please fuck me,” she whimpered, watching him pull down his sweats and his boxers, watching his dick fall out of his pants and into his hands, watching his abs glisten with sweat. She wanted him inside her, and thinking about Bucky thrusting into her made her whimper.

“Bucky,” she moaned, “Bucky.”

He watched her for a moment, knowing he was torturing her, enjoying the view of her wet pussy, her tits, her tousled hair and swollen mouth, then he flipped her over, pulled up her ass, and rubbed the tip of his cock on her wet pussy. He teased her first, rubbing it on her clit, then finally sliding it inside her, giving her a moment to adjust, then slowly thrusting.

Kelsey moaned his name her back arched down, and Bucky bent down to her, keeping his pace.

“How do you want me to fuck you?” he groaned into her ear, and the sound of his voice sent her.

“Faster. Harder. Bucky, please,” she whimpered. He snaked one of his hands on her breast, massaging it slowly, and the other on her clit, and Kelsey couldn’t help but moan his name some more, until Bucky couldn’t stand it and fucked her harder, his hands pleasuring her at the same time.

She bucked her ass up into him, forcing him to go deeper, his hand on her breast and her clit, and he moaned. “Fuck,” he said, his voice low. “You like that?” he asked.

Kelsey did. She moaned his name back and thrusted her ass up against his body as he continued to rub her pussy and her tits, his dick sliding inside her so forcefully and so _good_ she wasn’t sure how long she’d last while listening to him moan.

“You want to come for me?” Bucky asked as he began to feel her pussy tighten and hear her moans getting louder.

Kelsey whimpered. “Come for me,” Bucky whispered to her, his voice, his hands, his dick all hitting her so good she couldn’t help but moan a little too loud, and when he wouldn’t stop whispering for her to cum and wouldn’t stop thrusting into her and rubbing her, she came hard on his dick, her orgasm riding her entire body and rendering her weak as she listened to him moan. Bucky slowly pulled out of her, letting her collapse onto his bed, and she rolled over to see Bucky rubbing his wet dick to the sight of her ass. Kelsey’s pussy throbbed from her orgasm as she reached out to his dick and take it in her mouth, listening to him moan as his hands grappled on her hair.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come so hard,” Bucky whispered, watching her mouth suck on his head, her tongue grazing against his skin, and just as Kelsey pulled her mouth away, he came on her neck and her tits, down to her stomach as her hands stroked his dick as he moaned, tugging her hair as he reached his orgasm.

“Fuck,” he panted, as Kelsey stroked his dick and rode him out of his high. He paused for a while, breathing in and out, his abs glistening with sweat, and then he bent down and kissed Kelsey on the mouth softly. So softly you’d think he was an entirely different person from who he was minutes ago.

He pulled up his boxers and his sweats, as Kelsey collapsed onto his bed. “Let me clean you up,” he said softly, his voice still low and quiet, and he came back, wiping off the cum he left on her chest.

Kelsey turned over in his bed, beginning to feel how sore she was, but before she could fall asleep, she felt Bucky crawl under the sheets with her.

“You tire me out,” she said to him with a smile, opening her eyes to see him tucking herself into bed with her and pulling her into him, his arms wrapped around her bare back.

Bucky didn’t say anything. He smiled back, but his response was his hands on her nape and her arms, rubbing soft circles on her skin and a kiss on her mouth, like he wasn’t done with her yet.

“Sorry I was kind of mean to you,” he whispered. His voice was musical.

Kelsey burst out chuckling, tearing her face away from his. “What?”

“I just… I’m sorry, I don’t talk to you like that.”

Kelsey was still laughing. “Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, still earnestly, “and I’m sorry I was so rough.”

“Bucky,” Kelsey said, staring at him, chuckling at his words. God. He looked helpless, and just so genuine and pure, and the light filtering in from the windows hit his hair and some of his face so softly and solemnly, she was hit with a pang how she had never felt like this, how she had never been treated like this, and for a few short seconds, everything felt peaceful to her, everything felt quiet.

And that was rare. Because for as long as she could remember, her life was a big hunk of shit, pure violence and pain, running towards danger with no intent to survive, no want for anything carnal and soft and pure. Then there was this boy cradling her, telling her he was sorry for being so rough during sex when truly, Kelsey looked at hand to hand combats like it was child’s play, and he choked men and killed them like it was a hobby.

So she knew this wouldn’t last. She knew this wasn’t meant to be forever, and that sooner or later, life would throw her back into the rubble, where she belonged, where she thrived, but that was okay, she told herself, as she stared at Bucky’s big blue eyes and swollen lips, that was okay, because at least she had this moment right now.


	7. Chapter 7

“Wait, where are you going again?” Bucky asked, following her around her apartment as she packed some of her clothes into a duffel bag, the SHIELD files stowed away in a hidden compartment to make sure he didn’t accidentally find it.

“Turks,” she said, “it’s a work trip, so it’s just for a couple days,” she lied, finding her small box of surveillance equipment and nonchalantly putting it into her bag with her underwear.

Bucky hovered. “Oh, yeah, your job… what’s that called again?”

“Social media management,” she said, smiling. She had told Bucky on the first few times they hung out that she was a social media manager for a online brand, a real 21st century job she knew Bucky wouldn’t know much about.

She was right. He did stop asking about it, and just sort of sat beside her as she finished packing a few of her stuff, asking her if she wanted him to come to the airport, if he could come to the trip, if he wanted him to pick her up when she got back. Kelsey didn’t know why he was saying what he was saying, but it bothered her for some reason, and the sooner she could get out of his hair, the better. From the first day they finally slept together, he’d practically chained himself to her hip like a stuffed monkey, and Kelsey didn’t like it. She almost couldn’t answer Tony’s call that morning if Bucky wasn’t in the shower.

“Enjoy your trip,” Bucky said to her, holding his arms out after loading her duffel bag in the car for her, and Kelsey smiled at him and gave him a short hug, and pulled away just as Bucky tried to kiss her goodbye, his mouth coming in contact with her head instead of her intended lips.

“Bye, Buck,” she smiled at him, somewhat forcefully, and closed the door, watching him stand outside the curb of their apartment building, looking a little confused, and honestly, like a lost puppy.

In truth, she wasn’t sure why she was so uninterested in somebody she was obsessed with days ago, but maybe it was also because she was so damn excited to be in her element again, that she couldn’t stand being Mia Santiago anymore.

That same morning, they had just had sex again, crazy, rough, Bucky sex, and when it was over, Kelsey still couldn’t stop kissing him.

“I gotta take a shower,” laughed Bucky in between kisses as Kelsey held his face close to hers and kissed him on the lips. “Mia, Mia, stop,” he chuckled. “Just stay there, let me just take a shower, alright?”

Kelsey smiled at him, watching him walk completely naked to his bathroom, staring at his tight ass and beautiful body, and it was only the ringing of her phone that interrupted her as she watched him like a damn movie.

“Tony?” she said in a whisper, searching for her t-shirt and pulling it over her head, and looking for the rest of her clothes. “Give me a second, I’m with Bucky.” She stepped into her underwear.

“Hey kid,” said Tony. “Wow, you guys are on a first-name basis now, huh?”

Kelsey sighed, putting on her shorts as she exited his apartment quietly. 

“Yeah, a little more than that, actually,” she said.

“Well, more on that later,” Tony said cautiously, “but we need you for a couple days here for a mission.”

Kelsey’s heart leapt. “Really? What mission?”   
“We’ll talk about it when you get here, it’s nothing you can’t do.”

“Tony, I’m in Cuba.”

“Yes, Kelsey, I’m aware,” he said, an intercom in the background, “but it’s not a big deal, look who you’re talking to, it’s a 2-hour flight on my jet. That’s like, commuting from Queens to Manhattan.”

Kelsey paused, beginning to pack her files into a duffel bag. “Have you ever commuted in your life? Ever?”

Tony paused as well. “You know what I’m saying. Just set up some extra surveillance from Barnes and I’ll have someone pick you up at 2, alright?”

Kelsey began to panic and think about what she was going to tell Bucky, how she was going to explain leaving out of the blue, but suddenly, she didn’t care. She thought about New York, and the burgers, and oh my God, the weapons. She missed guns and her vibranium butterfly knife, and she missed violence. God, did she miss the violence of working with the Avengers, the adrenaline rushes she’d get overcoming something that seemed impossible, of just fighting for hours and hours on tirelessly, finishing the day knowing what she did for the people was priceless, alongside the people that took her in and appreciated her gifts and used it for good. She missed them the most. So when she climbed into the Stark jet she knew well, she smiled the biggest smile seeing who was piloting it.

“I thought you weren’t with us, Colonel,” she said, giving Rhodey a big hug, dropping her duffel bag on the floor and sitting beside him by the head of the jet.

Rhodes shrugged. “I thought I was, too. Nice to see you, Kelsey.”

“Why aren’t you with the rest?”

“It’s a long story,” sighed Rhodes, “but I think they want some of us working without oversight from SHIELD because they’re not sure who to trust anymore.”

“Then what am I doing babysitting?” Kelsey asked, annoyed, fastening her seatbelt.

“Actually I do think Cap is right for putting extra protection on Barnes right now.”

“You know he’s a killing machine, right?”

Rhodes nodded, “But only as the Winter Soldier.”

“No, Colonel,” she reasoned out, “why are we benching him when we know he’s not working for Hydra anymore?”

“He’s more of a liability right now since everyone’s still on his tail, Kels,” he said. “We can work now because no one knows we’re protecting him, but if we put him back in business to work for us, we’re criminals.”

Kelsey paused in silence, sighed. Rhodes was right, and she knew it full well, but if she convinced them to put him on back in field, he’d finally be allowed to find out who she was, and she could stop lying to him before any actual damage.

“Rhodey,” she asked quietly after a few silent minutes of thought, Rhodes just zooming through the sky in a speed she would’ve freaked out over a few years ago. “Can I ask you something hypothetically?”

“Yeah?”

“What if,” she began slowly, “and this is all fictional, by the way… this agent was put on a surveillance mission, and they developed a relationship with the person they were protecting?”

Rhodes glance at her, his face contorted with confusion.

“Well, then, hypothetically, I’d think agent would need to talk to Steve about it,” he said. “Are you serious? You and Barnes?”

Kelsey opened her mouth in shock. “What?”

“Jesus, Kelsey, what kind of relationship?” he asked, cutting through a cloud and checking the map on the jet’s dashboard to see if they were on track.

Kelsey sighed. “You know, just casual,” she said, then added in a low voice, “sexual...”

Rhodes raised his eyebrows. “You slept with Barnes? The Winter Soldier? Really?”

“Is it really a big deal?” she said quietly.

The colonel sighed. “You know, it’s not my place to say, it isn’t my mission, but if it were, I’d kill you right now, Kelsey. I’d open that door and push you out.”

“Colonel, first off, you know I’d survive that height, and second, I was just staying in character because he was getting suspicious.”

“Suspicious that you didn’t with him?”

“Yes. I swear,” said Kelsey, “I swear, Rhodes, it was the best decision.”

Rhodes glanced at her, disappointed, but he continued to zoom through the sky in an even faster speed.

“Do you think it’s okay if I don’t tell Cap?” Kelsey blurted out after a few minutes of silence.

“Seriously?” Rhodes groaned. “You know, I always told them this, but you’re too young to be doing this thing, seriously.”

“Colonel, come on, I’m just not a good babysitter but I can whip anyone’s ass hand to hand!”

And it went on for hours.

Rhodey had always been the more dad type among them, and sometimes it was fun, like how he taught her how to fly the Stark jet, but sometimes he was this old, nagging man, and Kelsey couldn’t wait for the jet to land. When they finally hovered New York, Kelsey looked out over the skyscraper-filled town, and immediately she could see the big A from across the distance, and for some reason, she felt like she was coming home.

“God, Rhodey, I missed this place,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt as the jet landed smoothly onto the tower’s gigantic garage. “I missed this!” she yelled, duffel bag in hand, as she exited the jet and looked around at all of their fighter planes and private planes and everything Tony had for the Avengers’ use.

“We missed you too, kid,” Rhodey smiled, entering the elevator and pressing one of the research and development floors on the building. “No one harps on Steve with Tony anymore.”

When the elevator dinged open, Kelsey could tell the energy in the room was tense, but she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of everyone she cared about in one room again, and none of them could, too.

“Kels!” Bruce, the one nearest the elevator hugged her first. “We didn’t expect you for another hour.”

“Rhodey drove us like we were getting chased, seriously,” she laughed, hugging Nat, Sam, and Tony next. Steve and Clint came up to her after, offering her a cup of coffee which she took. Bruce walked out of the bathroom and greeted her.

“Wait, so no one missed me?” Rhodes said, feigning disappointment, then sitting on one of the empty chairs facing the screen. “I went to Cuba, too.”

Kelsey sat down on the last unoccupied one, sipping the coffee she was handed, staring at the screen.

“So where’s the fight?”

“I don’t think we’re qualified to answer that anymore,” Steve sighed, leaning against one the table by the back.

“Two nights ago we finally got a match for the weapons that were stolen from SHIELD, and it wasn’t just one, it was a huge explosion of arc reactor weapon signatures, in the Gulf of Mexico,” Nat explained.

Kelsey looked at Tony. “SHIELD has your arc reactor technology?”

“Ivanko had a few more hidden that SHIELD didn’t tell me about,” he said, shrugging, “Fury’s an asshole. I tried to tell you guys.”   
“Anyway,” Nat continued, swiping on the screen in the air, and Kelsey stared, forgetting they even had technology like that, “we went and tried to retrieve all the weapons, but it turns out they were prototypes with the same technology, we arrested a few and they’re in for interrogation right now until we can get them to name their supplier.” Two vaguely familiar girls appeared on screen, as well as what looked like high tech tanning bed. Kelsey leaned closer. “That’s Maria Hill from SHIELD, Dr. Helen Cho, and the Regeneration Cradle. When we came back from Mexico, all three were gone.”

“Wow,” Kelsey furrowed her eyebrows. “Maria Hill looks a lot like a tanning bed.”

“Focus up,” Steve said soberly.

Tony glanced back at Kelsey and smiled as Nat continued. “At the same time, this pops up on our radar in what looks like a camp in New Jersey, and satellite images show us there a lot of people coming in everyday. We identified a few of them, but there’s no rhyme or reason to the people there.” 

“That’s a hammer and sickle,” Kelsey said, looking at the satellite image of the cam and noticing the pattern on the grass. “Proletarian solidarity. Is this a communist camp?” she asked. “What’s in it?”

“Do you recognize what this is?” Bruce picked up after her, swiping through the large floating screen and zooming into a bunch of gold light specks. “The last time the atmosphere detected a neuron emission of the same density, speed, and frequency, we–”

“Bruce, I don’t speak whatever language you’re speaking right now.”

“Ultron and Vision were created,” he said. “We think that’s where the Cradle is, and we think whoever’s using it now is creating an army of Ultrons because the pattern of the neuron emissions...” Bruce paused at the sight of Kelsey’s face. “Because we think they’ve repeated the process a lot.”

“Fury doesn’t think it’s anything,” Nat said, sighing, “and he gave us orders to stay with SHIELD in New York, so we can’t investigate this, but since he doesn’t keep tabs on you and Sam, you guys can look for the Cradle, Hill, and Cho.”

Kelsey leaned in closer to the picture of the camp. “Is this connected to the prototype arc reactor weapons in Mexico?”

“We don’t know,” Steve answered. “We can’t find a connection yet.”

“So we’re not sure who we’re fighting?” Kelsey asked.

He sighed. “We’re not.”

Kelsey smiled, a wave of anxiety drifting over her as she faced danger again, but God, was she thrilled to be back on the dance floor. Her dance floor. “When do we start?”


	8. Chapter 8

“Falcon, Cruz, entering the drop zone in 30,” Rhodey said, into his mic, the helicopter’s propellers drowning out the sound of his real voice.

“Copy!” Sam yelled the same time as Kelsey did, positioning themselves by the doors of the helicopter, slowly lowering to reveal the afternoon sky. It was golden hour. Kelsey couldn’t help but think of Bucky, but she shook it off just as fast. She pat down her jeans, the pockets of her jacket, and the vest underneath her shirt, making sure everything she needed was on her, shoving in an extra knife in one of her boots and a bomb on the other.

“Ten seconds!” Rhodey called out, and Sam started opening his wings, Kelsey moving around and positioning herself on his back, her arms clutched onto the straps on his back, both of them just waiting for Rhode’s signal.

“Three, two, one! Jump now!”

“Hold tight, Kels,” Sam said and Kelsey grappled onto his back as he jumped out of the helicopter, flying straight down the ground, a little west of where the campsite was. Kelsey hopped off Sam’s back as they hit the soil gently, dusting herself off a bit, Sam retracting his wings and concealing them underneath a backpack, as they walked in the direction of the camp, slowing down and silencing their footsteps as they drew nearer and a clearing came into view.

“You think there could be some sort of protection around it?” Kelsey asked Sam as they sauntered closer to the main camp.

“You read my mind.”

She picked up a rock. “It might set off an alarm,” she said, tossing the rock as far away as possible, and a red light appeared where it had hit, and beeping sound blasted through the megaphones on a pole in the middle of the grassy courtyard, and they watched as four men in green uniforms ran to check out what caused the alarm.

“There,” Sam said, pointing at the buildings, and they ran around the circumference of the camp, stopping only once they reached the part where the buildings stood close together.

“That building,” Sam pointed, “that’s where the neutron emissions are coming from.”

“Got it.” Kelsey picked up another rock and threw it as far as she could, setting off another alarm across the camp before they charged through the dome, setting off yet another one as they ran towards the building. 

“Hey, no unauthorized entry there!” a guard yelled at them as they pushed through the doors of the building. “Hands up!” he screamed, pointing a gun in their direction, as Kelsey picked up a heavy trash can and hurled it at him, dropping his gun. She ran to it and picked it up, shooting the guard in the legs as two others charged towards her as she ran into the building with Sam.

“Go!” he yelled at her, as he pulled out his own gun and fired at the guards, running into the building after her, locking the main entrance with a heavy cabinet to prevent the incoming guards from getting in.

“Just unlock all the doors,” Kelsey told Sam as he rushed in after her, scanning what seemed like an empty lobby. 

“I’ll go third floor, you go second,” Sam said, running up the stairs as Kelsey shot the doorknob on the first floor. Coat cabinet. She ran up the stairs, eyes searching for the Cradle, but they landed on Sam fighting off two guards, and she shot them as she walked up the stairs. Three more armed men ran down the stairs from the third floor, and Kelsey pulled her trigger on them but she was out, and in the split second she realized this, the guards had pulled their guns on her, firing at her. She ducked down, swiping the first guard’s legs, pulling him down to her and jamming her elbow into his crotch, and she stood back up and jammed her unloaded gun into the second’s neck and eyes, then taking his gun and shooting the first guard down. The second was on the floor and he pulled her down by her leg, and she crashed on the floor, forcing herself into an angle to shoot him in the jaw.

“Gross, Jesus,” she said to Sam, attempting to wipe it off as the guard’s blood splattered on her cheek as she got up and looked at the files on the desk, taking everything she could get and pocketing everything that looked important, because they weren’t really at a good place to read thoroughly. She pulled out a high-impact taser from her jacket, holding the gun with her trigger in on the other, and she gestured Sam to head up the stairs.

“Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot.”

It was Agent Hill with a gun to her head, panting, her eyes fearful but confused. The Cradle was sitting in the middle of what looked like a laboratory, and it was whirring, while Helen Cho was in the corner, unconscious, hands tied behind her back.

The agent with a gun to Hill’s head repeated his instructions, his finger now tightening slightly on the trigger. “Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot.”

“Don’t, they have the cradle–” Hill began, and the man forcefully pushed her head onto the muzzle of the gun, his other hand covering Hill’s mouth.

“Drop it now or I’m going to kill her.”

Kelsey’s heart raced, but she knew what to do. She looked at Sam, and he did, too, and the same time, they put their weapons on the ground slowly. “Okay,” Sam said. “Okay.”

“Let her go,” Kelsey said as they placed their guns on the floor, hands returning in the air.

“She said let her go!” Sam yelled, the guy faced his gun towards him, and in the split second he did, before he could threaten him, Kelsey flipped over, kicking his gun away while picking up her taser in one fluid motion. She landed with a foot on his chest and before he could move, she tased his head and punched him a few times for good measure, tying up his hands.

Sam rushed to Dr. Helen Cho, tapping on his earpiece and contacting Rhodes. “Rhodes, we found the Cradle, we have Cho and Hill with us. I’m going to blow up the roof on this thing.”

Kelsey peered down, watching from the third floor as a few guards managed to break their way into the building, and she took the last guard’s gun and shot everyone coming up the stairs.

“Tell Rhodes to hurry up, I’m going to blow this building up!” she yelled as her eyes followed a bigger group of guards piling through the rubble in the doorway. Kelsey took out a grenade, pulled the tab and threw it to the first floor, shooting the few that had reached the second floor staircase and was shooting up at them. The building shook when the grenade exploded, and Kelsey checked the group of guards down the stairs all unconscious.

“Hill,” Kelsey said, looking back at the Agent, “take as many files as you can, and we’re taking him with us for questioning,” she said, pointing to the bloodied and passed out guard.

She nodded, picking up the papers that were scattered on the floor from the fight. Kelsey bent down to get her gun back just as a gunshot punctured a hole through the roof, and debris began to fall all over them.

“Where the fuck is Rhodes?” Kelsey screamed at Sam as more bullets pierced the roof, and when it stopped for a moment, she peered over the stairway and shot at the guards, but suddenly, she was hit by a force on her shoulder that sent her on the floor.

“She’s hit!” Hill yelled, panicking, and Kelsey looked at her shoulder, only realized then she had been shot on the arm, blood seeping into her shirt then her jacket. Her nerve endings were fucked up, and it didn’t bother her. Kelsey picked up her gun again and checked if anyone else was downstairs.

“Kels, look out!” Sam yelled at her, and she looked at him as he ran to the corner of the building, hiding the unconscious Dr. Cho in his arms, and Hill on his side. The bomb he planted on the ceiling detonated, and the rubble fell down, all over the floor, hitting their heads, and they coughed as the fine powder infiltrated the air.

She jumped when she heard the helicopter’s propellers and ran up to the crevice the bomb created in the ceiling. Sam opened his wings and flew Dr. Cho into the helicopter before throwing down the ladder Hill climbing onto and into the aircraft.

“Fly this for me, Hill,” Rhodes said, leaving his seat as he jumped off the helicopter, helping Sam carry the cradle, and Kelsey dragged the guard towards the crevice with her, trying to carry him as she climbed the ladder, but Sam and Rhodes were able to get the Cradle on the helicopter and carry the guard for her. Kelsey gathered up all her strength, though her arm felt weak from the gunshot, and climbed onto the aircraft as the guards from the camp began shooting up at them.

Sam slammed the door shut as Kelsey collapsed onto the helicopter floor.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, “hurry up Rhodes, I don’t like this bullet in my arm.”

“Here,” he replied, tossing something from one of the helicopter’s compartments towards her, one hand still steering out of the camp. “Inject it near where you got shot. It’s a stabilizing agent.”

Kelsey poked the needle through her jacket and into her skin, releasing the thing inside into her open wound, and she felt it seal up and tighten. “Oh, Jesus. Thanks.”

“You good over there?” Sam asked.

“Kinda hungry. Think we could pass by drive-thru in a chopper?” Kelsey asked. Sam chuckled.

“This is Rhodes, we have the Cradle, Hill, and Cho, and we’re on our way back to Manhattan in–” A loud, earsplitting noise interrupted Rhodes as he spoke, then a blast by the rear end of the helicopter that sent it spinning around, pulling down the five of them down with it, crashing into some of the trees outside the camp’s base.

“Fuck!” Sam yelled as they collapsed onto the ground, the helicopter’s entire back left exposed. He had just started to say something else when it began to rain bullets from outside the helicopter, and it drowned out the sound of his voice.

“We’re fighting our way out of this,” Kelsey yelled and breathed heavily, taking out extra guns from the compartments on the walls, and tossing it to everyone.

“I’m going high,” Sam responded, taking a few grenades as he ran out and shot right up into the sky. Kelsey didn’t have time to watch as she ran out, hiding behind one of the fallen trees and shooting at everyone she could aim on and taking down a few, before the rest ran behind her, as Hill and Rhodey fired back.

A blow from behind her head threw Kelsey off guard, as suddenly she was grabbed from behind her, a knife nearly cutting into her neck as she took a step back and jammed her elbow into the guard behind her and throwing him over, landing on the dirt beneath them. Kelsey quickly picked up the knife from the ground, kicking the guard in the groin as he got up, and quickly jammed her fist into his neck and broke his windpipe. She turned around in time to miss a punch another guard threw at her, his hands proceeding to her neck to choke her. Kelsey struggled for breath and groaned at the pressure on her windpipe for a second as she pulled then raised her arms and broke his lock on her neck, and she wheezed, punching the man square in the face then in to his jaw, just as another guard at her back came into peripheral vision. 

“Stand down!” he yelled, pointing a gun at her, but she ignored it, jumping up to kick the gun off his hands and pulling down the collar of his shirt to knee him on the face, then in the groin, turning back around to elbow the other guard, kicking him to the ground, and then stabbing him through his stomach. Her other opponent rose up from the ground from the side of her eye and she spun to face him, throwing him a punch he blocked with his arm, then kicking his legs to watch him topple over. Kelsey ran to his gun and shot him in the head, running back behind the helicopter to shoot the two guards Hill was throwing punches with.

“Thank you!” she yelled, pulling out a knife and fighting back at the next guards fighting her, while Kelsey emptied her magazine on a few guards Rhodes ended up in combat with, her attention shifting as she nearly missed a bullet by her head.

“You’re ten feet away, how could you miss that?” she yelled at the guard shooting at her, as she dove down, hiding from another shower of bullets and spinning the knife she picked up towards him and hitting him in the stomach, his gun dropping to the ground as Kelsey rushed to pick it up, kicking a guard in attack as she got up, fighting off another one behind her. And another one.  _ Oh, collaboration _ , Kelsey thought, as she jammed a knife into a man’s throat and blocked another’s punch with her arm on her other side, while the third picked her up and attempted to handcuff her, but she put in all her strength to throw him over, using the chain on the handcuff to choke the other guard attacking her and holding it tight until he choked as she beat up the guard on the floor’s face with her boot until his blood got on her jeans.

For a second, Kelsey stopped to breathe, but Sam’s voice cut off her split-second moment of peace.

“Don’t let them get to Cho!” he yelled, and Kelsey sprinted towards the broken helicopter, where three guards were rushing into.

“On it!” she yelled back, jumping up over a fallen tree and rushing inside, the guards coming into view. She pulled out her butterfly knife from her boot and flipped it open, jamming it into the last guard’s neck from behind him, the noise she made catching their attention.

“Go get Cho, I’ll fight this one off,” she heard one of the guards say, the other running towards the unconscious woman on the floor.

“Yeah right, dipshit,” she retorted, punching him square in the jaw and ducking down as he swing his fist forward and kneeing him in the gut, watching from her peripherals as the guard began to pick up Cho and call for backup. Kelsey sliced through the guard’s stomach, letting him fall on the floor as she turned around and swiped the other guard’s legs as he ran out of the helicopter with Cho on him. He fell to the floor, the doctor falling with him, and Kelsey ran to him, picking up a piece of the helicopter that fell on the ground, and smashed the man’s head with it.

“All clear,” she yelled, but just as she yelled, two more guards came in, shooting at her as they did, and Kelsey ducked down fast enough for only one of them to hit her on shoulder. “Shit! Not clear!” she yelled, running towards the guards, hitting one of the guns out of his hands and kicking the other from behind her. Kelsey jammed her knife into the man’s face, but he blocked it fast enough to just slice his cheek, and so she spun around to kill the other officer instead, stabbing him on his chest and punching him while she kicked the guard behind her and blocked his punches with her arm.

“Fuck!” she yelled, as he tugged on her wounded shoulder, and she turned to face him, taking her other arm and used her strength to slam him on the floor.

Before she could finish the job, two guards entered the helicopter, then three more, then soon enough, she was surrounded by around eight guards – math was never her strong suit – in the same costume, pointing their guns at her.

“Drop your weapons!” one of the yelled at her, sauntering forward and stopped when his muzzle was on her forehead. She heaved. “Hands up!”

_ Fuck, _ she thought.  _ Fuck _ . It looked like the end. And in the split second she took to catch her breath, she didn’t mean to, but she thought about Bucky, in Cuba, and that before him, she never had any reason to live another day, but now, God, she was staring death in the eyes and she wanted to fight her way through the bullet showers and blood, just so she could come home to him.

Kelsey took a deep breath, the smell of gunpowder and blood and the forest in her lungs. “Fine,” she breathed out, sweat trickling down her back and her neck, blood all over her arms and clothes.

She raised her arms slowly. “Fine,” she repeated. The men loosened their fingers on the trigger, and when they did, she quickly pulled the gun from her forehead and flipped it around, shooting the guard in the chin in one swift motion.

“I could use a bit of back up over here!” she screamed as she ran to the guards in front of her, punching one of them and kicking another behind her, kneeing another one to the side as she cut another guard’s face, struggling a bit, her arm weakening as she took blow after blow, fighting off the seven men in the helicopter.

“Ow, fuck!” she yelled, as one guard slammed into her wounded arm, another attempting to stab her, with her other wounded arm fighting off his strength before the blade reached her neck, but her strength failed her, and she lapsed, the knife grazing the side of her face just before she slammed her knee into him. A punch greeted her from her right side, and from her back, she felt a hand cuffing her. Another man sauntered closer as she attempted to pry her hand free, and another punch came from her side.

For a second, she struggled, kicking one man in the balls as four others attempted to decapitate her, and then the next, bullets rained over the helicopter, and the guards, one by one, fell down to their death.

Kelsey looked up in question, picking up a gun, her entire body in pain now, lungs out of breath, and checking the sky to see what it was, or if she was actually the target.

Short black dreadlocks, brown skin, one hand on the helicopter railing, another on a gun. No fucking way.

“Long time no see, Kels!”


	9. Chapter 9

“I don’t have a good feeling about this guy, Kelsey,” Steve said, hovering over, his arms crossed.

Kelsey rolled her eyes as she lay down on the Cradle, Dr. Cho to her side, a strange feeling taking over where she was wounded. Basically, everywhere.

“I do,” shrugged Natasha, chuckling a little, and Kelsey laughed.

“What’s his name again?” Steve asked, shaking his head playfully at Nat.

“You’re gonna google him?” Kelsey asked. “Because I can teach you how to google stuff, Cap.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop the small smile on his lips. “Very funny. What’s his name?”

“Erik Stevens,” said Kelsey, “Erik with a K.”

“Alright,” Cap nodded, “I’m gonna go and… google him.” He nodded some more, Kelsey watching him as he left the lab. He came back after a few seconds. “Nat, can you…” he said, gesturing out of the door, as Kelsey and Nat laughed, the latter following Cap out the door.

They were back in Avengers Tower now, their ride back to Manhattan sponsored by one of Kelsey’s oldest and closest friends, one of the few she trusted with her life from the years they spent together in training and in the black ops. He pulled them all up in his helicopter at the last second, as she, Sam, Rhodey and Hill found themselves completely outnumbered and out of ammunition. 

“Almost done,” said Cho after a few minutes of silence, Kelsey just closing her eyes for a bit, her body tired and sore. “Thanks for saving my life again, by the way.”

She smiled at the doctor. “You know, I never know what to say when people tell me that.”

“I’m really sorry I can’t remember what happened,” she continued.

“It’s not your fault, come on,” Kelsey replied. She saw Cho’s face, disdain, regret, before she continued, distracting her as the Cradle whirred. “You think I’m gonna scar?”

“No,” Cho said carefully, taking a closer look at her bare skin. “Especially on these spots. Your nerves have nuclei and dendrites that function like the–”

“Marie Curie, come on, hey, I’m not a genius,” Kelsey laughed.

“Your body’s different,” Dr. Cho said. “No scars.”

“Good,” she said, relieved, thinking about what Bucky would make out of the scars she had on her body after her ‘work trip.’ The thought of him made her stomach churn. She wanted to go back. 

The machine stopped whirring, and Kelsey opened her eyes.

“There, all done,” Cho said, opening up the Cradle to let Kelsey get up. She eyed her arm and her shoulder, feeling for any pain, any bumps. None.

She smiled. “Thanks, doctor.”

“Call me Helen.”

“Your name is  _ Helen _ ?” she asked, pulling a shirt back on, laughing a little more with the doctor, before she took a quick shower in the beautiful en suite in her room she missed too much.

She found her normal phone in her bag as she got out of the shower and looked for her deodorant and toothbrush, and she sat down and plugged it in as she put on her underwear. It finally booted up as she finished getting dressed, and messages flooded in, all of them from Bucky.

_ 2:20 pm: Let me know when you land. _

_ 3:00 pm: Hope you’re safe. _

_ 5:40 pm: Look who I bumped into!  _

A picture of Bucky smiling with two vaguely familiar strangers was attached, and the sight of his grin made Kelsey smile without realizing it. She zoomed into his face. He hadn’t shaved or brushed his hair, his eyes were blue in the picture, and his grin looked a bit tired to her. She stared at it some more, sitting on her bed, just staring. Staring at his face and his hair, the sweater he was wearing, the part of his biceps that curved around his clothes. He was delicious as hell. Anyone would’ve looked at him and thought so.  _ God, I get to kiss this, _ she thought, scrolling through the messages some more, licking her lips unconsciously.

_ 5:41 pm: We met them the night you got drunk, they got so excited. They looked for you the moment they saw me. _

_ 9:02 pm: I really just hope you’re safe. Come home. _

Kelsey took a deep breath.

_ Come home. _

Where was home? She hadn’t been at home since she fled the Philippines when she was 20. Ever since then, there were only crash pads and short-term houses, no homes. She was never around long enough to develop any kind of emotional connection to the beds she slept on, never any attachment to the rooms she stayed in. Until Avengers Tower. Until Cuba. Her chest ached, physically. Like it was going to burst, as she took a breath and remember Bucky’s warmth, Bucky’s voice.

And the next thing she knew, she was pressing the call button and holding it up to her ear.

He picked up after three rings.

“Hello?” Bucky said over the line. His voice melted her stomach.

“It’s–”  _ Kelsey, _ she almost said. “Mia.”

“Mia,” he said, “finally. I wasn’t sure if you got my messages, or if it was alright to call.”

“You worried about me or something?” she asked mockingly, smiling. He laughed. She could feel it over the line, she could see him grin in her mind.

“Shut up.”

“I just called to tell you I’m fine, I don’t want you crying all night.”

Bucky laughed a little more, and Kelsey relished in the sound. “How’d you know?” he asked. “When are you coming home?”

“Soon,” she said, hoping it was true. In truth, she didn’t know, it was all up to Cap. “I gotta go.”

“Already? We exchanged three sentences,” said Bucky quietly.

Kelsey laughed. “See you soon. Take care, alright?”

“Come home,” he moaned, laughing. “Fine. Take care.”

“I miss you too, Buck,” she said, before dropping the call hastily. God, did she miss him, and she sure as hell wanted to listen to him talk for hours on end, but instead, she left her room and made her way to the tower’s kitchen.

Erik was sitting in the kitchen, leaning over the table and talking, and Sam, Rhodey, Steve and Nat listened to him, all chuckling.

“Speak of the devil,” he said as Kelsey walked into the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the fridge before sitting down with them.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, God, what did he tell you?” she asked, smiling as the four Avengers chuckled.

“You’ve been exposed, Cruz,” Nat laughed.

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Sam snorted at her, laughing back.

Erik shrugged, “Nothing, nothing,” he said, “just a little insight into your career history.” Kelsey scrunched her forehead sipping her beer, as he flipped over his phone to show her an old video of her posing by the beach as a photographer took photo after photo.

Kelsey almost spit out her beer. “Oh, fuck no.”

“I can’t believe you hid that from us all these years,” Sam laughed.

She looked at Erik. “I tell people secrets!” he said, shrugging. “It makes them like me!”

“Really? Not me.” Kelsey laughed.

“Yeah, because I already know you do,” Erik said, smiling. Kelsey remembered just how handsome he was, his smile still as charming as it was during the days they still spent together in training in Iraq and Afghanistan, his words still carrying the perfect flounce they used to have when they were on black ops missions in Asia. When he twitched his lip into the smirk she’d seen so often on his lips, she couldn’t help but smile back and remember him in class, sparring with her, careful not to hurt her too much but never letting her win either, and when class was done, they’d laugh and talk about taking down the bourgeoisie, watching the system fall at their feet. They’d prepare for operations, guns strapped to their heavy vests, fighting people from every nation and every continent, throwing punches and going hand to hand in perfect sync, never leaving without a sense of victory.

Erik looked like that to her. He looked like the first taste of blood in her mouth, the first time she ever felt the high of combat, the power, the strength.

And it wasn’t so bad that he was hot as hell, either.

Steve finally spoke. “Wait, what are you… why do you... How did you…” he said, stumbling over his words, and Kelsey snapped her attention away from Erik and onto Cap.

“Use your words, Cap,” Kelsey said, laughing.

He sighed, leaning back into his chair. “Explain. Please. I don’t understand a thing.”

“We were trained together, we met at this… assassin camp,” she said, searching for the right term but couldn’t find anything better than that. Erik laughed. “That’s exactly what it is.” He nodded.

“Then we went into black ops after getting trained, and I needed an alibi that would put me off the checklist, so I did some modelling, because you can’t be suspected for taking down a president if you’re at a photoshoot.”

Nat nodded. “That’s exactly why I did it, too, when I was in KGB.”

“Worked perfectly, for like, two years?”

“Almost three,” Erik corrected her, as she took a sip of her beer.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, then you just didn’t show up one day,” Erik said. “Where the hell did you go?”

Kelsey smiled. “All over. Ended up here, it’s not so bad.”

“Y’all sitting up here comfortable huh?” Erik smiled, and when he did, Kelsey could see the energy in his eyes, and something told her it wasn’t a compliment.

Steve interrupted the silence. “So what were you doing in New Jersey?”

“I came back here after doing some work in Iraq, and now I’m doing black ops for the CIA again, so I came looking for their leader.”

Kelsey looked at him. “You know who?”

Erik nodded, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket and unravelled it on the table. “Guy Sanders. Long history in activism and he used to teach Social Science at the graduate level in Brown.”

“Is he familiar to you?” Rhodes as Kelsey as she leaned in closely. Thick beard, thick brows. He looked like an evil Santa.

“I… I don’t know, Colonel,” she said.

“You sure this is the guy?” Natasha asked.

Erik took a breath. “I only get the kill mission, I’m not part of the research they have going on there.”

The room was quiet, and any trace of the laughter that ensued earlier was no longer in the air. Everyone was sizing up Erik, looking for cracks on the surface, wondering how much of his words and actions were trustworthy. Kelsey wasn’t. If it were on him to save her life, she wouldn’t even flinch.

Steve was the first one to speak.

“Alright,” he said, nodding at Erik. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” he said to everyone else before chugging his remaining beer and standing up.

“I’ll take him to the copter,” Kelsey said, standing up as well, taking her beer with her, Erik on her side. He said goodnight to everyone, told them it was nice meeting them, and addressed Kelsey only when they were back in the elevator alone, on the way to the tower’s garage.

He smiled at her before saying anything. “It’s good to see you, Kelsey. You didn’t even say goodbye to me before you ran off.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a long list of people,” she said, smiling at him. “You’re looking good.”

“You’re looking as fine as ever,” he said. 

Kelsey laughed. “I forgot you hit on everyone like that.”

“Not the white bread,” he said, and she laughed some more. “Give me your phone, let me give you my number.” Kelsey pulled it out of her pocket, and he dialled his number on it, hit call, and a tune rang out of his back pocket as they reached the floor of the garage.

Kelsey nodded, pocketing it back. “Got it. There’s your heli.” She pointed, though she knew Erik was aware of where it was.

“Thanks.” He hopped down the stairs. “And Kelsey? It’s really good to see you. No cap.”


	10. Chapter 10

When Kelsey arrived back in Cuba the next morning, Bucky was shirtless, unshowered and unshaved, his hair was a tousled mess, his eyes and lips were swollen with sleep, and his voice was raspier, deeper than usual. Kelsey wasn’t ready.

She had spent all night thinking about him, right after Cap told her to return to Cuba and keep doing surveillance, and then thought about him some more since she woke up at 5:00 am that morning. The entire plane ride with Sam behind the wheel’s jet, they talked and laughed, caught up a bit and laughed some more, but she was thinking about Bucky, and his smile and his laugh, and how she was way too excited to see him again for someone who was actually just his babysitter. When she arrived back in Havana and bought breakfast burritos for the both of them, she was still thinking about him, still daydreaming and worrying about the nature of her presence back in Cuba.

She had thought about him a lot. Too much. Even up until she was rapping at his apartment at 7:42 am, she was thinking about him.

But when he opened his door, and Kelsey caught sight of him right out of bed, she still wasn’t ready.

Her stomach did a woo-hoo.

She couldn’t help but smile. Bucky stood there, dazed, eyes still sleepy, then after a second, he grinned, chuckling softly, just short bursts of air from his mouth, his mouth not sure whether to speak or to smile, his face just painted in the purest expression of disbelief and joy Kelsey had ever seen. 

It warmed her heart.

“You’re back,” he said. His voice was raspy as hell. Kelsey couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t. “Did you bring me back–” Bucky began to say, but Kelsey rudely cut him off, jamming her mouth on his, just dropping everything she was holding as she kissed him, and he kissed her right back, and running her hands through his neck and his hair, down his arms, his back, his chest, his abs. Touching him.

And he didn’t have morning breath. Was that a Super Soldier thing?

She pulled away after a few minutes, her mouth tingling heavily from all the making out.

“Wow,” Bucky said, tearing his face away just a little to look her in the face. “But I can’t get a text back?”

Kelsey contorted her face just a little. “I texted you back.”

“No,” he said, his hands grabbing her on the side of her head, under her hair, as her own slowly rubbed circles on the crevices of his back. “You did not send a single text to me the entire time you were gone.”

“Yeah, well,” Kelsey shrugged, “I don’t like you that much.”

Bucky smiled at her, hands still holding her head firmly, and he responded by planting a kiss square on her lips, then another, and another, gently kissing her mouth, his stubble grazing her chin with every time he kissed her.

“How was your trip?” he asked her quietly, his morning voice sending her stomach in spiral again, kissing her one last time as he spun her around to take off her jacket, hanging it over his chair.

Kelsey shrugged, sitting down on the edge of Bucky’s bed, undoing her shoes. “It was fine,” she said, juggling a lot of internet jargon even she didn’t understand, and she stared at Bucky, mumbling his “oh, cool” and “wow” comments and pretending to comprehend what she said. It made her smile.

She flopped onto his bed as she kicked off her shoes.

“I brought breakfast,” she said to him, pointing at the paper bag she dropped on the floor, “that bag, right there.”

Bucky bent over to pick it up, and Kelsey eyed his ass, his abs, even his goddamn arms as he opened the paper bag. The metal arm was really growing on her.

“What’s this?” he asked, pulling the burritos out.

“That’s a breakfast burrito,” Kelsey said, looking at Bucky as he examined it, smelling it through the foil, and it was then that she realized that he had never encountered one of those. 

Bucky opened the foil carefully, almost too carefully, like he was scared of it. “I’ve never had one of these,” he said, his voice dripping in genuine confusion, and he looked at Kelsey for instructions.

She smiled through her second bite. “It’s not a bomb, Bucky,” she said through a full mouth, laughing as Bucky stared at the burrito a little too intensely.

“Okay, here it goes,” he said, his voice a little quiet, and Kelsey wanted to grab him and hug him, but she resisted the urge to do anything too emotionally-charged. He chewed, slowly, looking at Kelsey as his eyes begin to widen pleasantly. “It’s good,” he said, surprise in his muffled voice. “I didn’t… expect that. It tastes like breakfast, but also like Mexican food. Also a little bit like bacon. I’ve never experienced this before,” he said, stopping his little rant to take another bite as Kelsey laughed at him, the wonder in his voice and his eyes.

She missed him. Everything about him. Nothing in New York was like Bucky in his purest state, so vividly excited for new things, unrestrained commentary on something as simple as a goddamn breakfast burrito. This was a different Bucky from the version she’d been introduced to the past few weeks. This was limited edition. This was the Bucky that was going to get hurt when he finds out Mia Santiago was a fake. 

She took a deep breath, forcing the smile on her lips to stay as she watched him continue to chew the burrito with joie de vivre, his arms waving around animatedly, his hair still quite a mess. She put her hand through it, because she wanted to, and she leaned forward and kissed his jaw, just because she had the urge. He smiled, pausing in the middle of his breakfast burrito speech to look at her.

“What?” he asked, swallowing and licking his lips.

_ Nothing, I just wanted to savor this before you find out I’ve been lying to you this entire time and understandably never let me this near you ever again. _

“Mind your own business,” Kelsey said, chuckling. He smiled at her. Kelsey kissed his jaw again, the stubble on his skin hitting her lips before the warmth of his actual flesh, but she didn’t mind. She breathed in, letting her nose fill up with the scent she’d miss when the time came, the weird musky, spearmint-y smell she got used to smelling whenever she stepped into his apartment or borrowed his clothes.

He smiled at her. “Come here,” he said, leaning in to kiss her, hand on her face, his words inducing something insider her, “you taste like a breakfast burrito too, probably, come here.”

She laughed against his perfect lips, and she could feel it curve into a smile back at her. It drove her crazy, feeling his lips. She was obsessed with his lips, she knew it now.

“You want some coffee?” he asked, pulling away after kissing her back, oblivious to the fact that Kelsey was ready to pounce on him right then and there.

She shrugged. Coffee wasn’t exactly what she wanted from him. “Sure.”

He got up from the bed and walked to his kitchen, Kelsey following his ass closely with her eyes. “I bought these new coffee grounds when I was at the market yesterday… thought we’d try them out,” he said, pouring them into his coffee machine, glancing up at Kelsey, smiling at her just a little bit.

“Oh, wait,” he said, “I don’t know how you like your coffee.” He frowned. “Why don’t I know that by now?”

Kelsey smiled, getting up and walking towards him, looking at his the whole time. The light in his apartment wasn’t on yet, so the sun was just filtering in softly against him, the crevices in his chest, his arms and his abdomen creating shadows against his skin. He pulled out a few coffee mugs, and Kelsey just watched him. It was a treat in itself, a beautiful gift to her eyes, and when his voice came into the mix, she couldn’t help but feel a familiar warmth in her stomach, a warmth only Bucky could really induce in her the same way, the same magnitude.

“You know,” she said, sitting on his kitchen counter, staring at his body again, then moving her eyes up to his face, his unshaved jaws, the pale blue-green eyes, the messy locks of brown hair. He looked at her, smiling softly.  _ Oh, fuck me, please. _

“Yeah?” he said.

“I’m not really in the mood for coffee right now,” she said slowly, placing an arm on his side, her voice low, her eyes trailing his body and she made sure he knew it.

Bucky smiled and turned over to face her slowly, his voice changing depth and character and telling her they were looking for the same thing now. “Yeah? What are you in the mood for?”

She laughed quietly, just little breaths of air from her nose, her hand now just resting on the skin above his waistband. “It’s not coffee,” she said quietly, slowly snaking her hands to his, so she could pull them on her, but Bucky snapped his hands away.

“Uh-uh,” he whispered, laughing a little, his face inching towards hers, and it made Kelsey’s stomach ache a little more, heat crawling up her feet. His voice was gold. “I’m not doing anything until you tell me what you want.”

Kelsey licked her lips and stared up at him. Her fingers started trailing down his abs to his crotch. “It’s not coffee.”

“What is it then, tell me.”

“It’s tea. I would really like some tea.”

Bucky snorted a little before bursting into laughter a little too loudly, and Kelsey couldn’t help it when she heard it, too.

“Okay, tea? Okay, I’ll get you some,” Bucky said, gesturing towards his cupboards, but she pulled his hand.   
“No, shut up,” she said, “I’m joking, come back here,” she pulled his head closer, smiling against his lips as they kissed, finally, his hands at last on her, the metal one on her thigh and the other one stroking her hips. His mouth was wet and perfect, teasing her lips perfectly as she kissed him, and kept kissing him, like she wanted to taste more of him, every part of him, before she pulled away to throw off her shirt, and came back to his mouth, taking his hands and placing them on her chest.

Bucky pulled away for a second, mouth all red. “This is tea?”


	11. Chapter 11

**warning: graphic sex**

It was starting to feel normal again in Cuba.

Kelsey and Bucky had spent nearly every night since she came back from New York drinking like she was back in college.

She Tony Starked it in college, graduating early and with honors, all while hitting the bars every single night, being at the frontlines of every rally there was. She was good at it. She was smart, and she was funny, and she was pretty, and so the challenges life gave her at 19 were easy.

And it was the first time things felt easy again, when she was clinking glasses at a club in downtown Havana, salsa music ringing through her drunk ears, Bucky just intoxicated enough to start dancing with Kelsey and the four new strangers they’d made friends with that night.

“Okay, bottoms up!” Kelsey cheered as the sound of glass clinking mixed in with the noise of the night, splashing a bit as she brought it to her mouth and drank the cocktail like it was water, stopping her little dance just to set her glass down.

Bucky was watching her. “Drink some water,” he said, handing her a glass, slurring his words a little bit at that point. “Mia. Drink. Drink.”

Kelsey wasn’t listening. At all. Her hands were swaying in the air, she was sure she was belting out a horrible version of this really popular Spanish song they’d been hearing a lot – but at least she got the words right – and she was swaying her ass in the best way possible for someone that drunk along with her friends, and Bucky’s voice telling her to drink water went completely ignored.

“Drink water,” Bucky said again, a little bit more forcefully, holding her waist this time, snaking it around.

Kelsey finally gave him her attention, dancing a little bit less livelier, her hands on his arms. “I’m not thirsty, Bucky,” she slurred out. “I just drank an entire glass,” she said, giggling at his face right after.

“Just a bit,” Bucky said, laughing back at her, inhaling and smelling her breath, kind of like alcohol and cola, a little bit like fruits, and Kelsey finally obliged, leaning in towards him.

He was warm, and he smelled good. Really good. 

“You smell good.”

“Drink,” he said gently, tilting the glass into her lips as Kelsey drank. Bucky watched her as she drunkenly attempted to sip, water dribbling down her chin. He continued to hold up the glass for her as he picked up a napkin and wiped her chin dry.

It took a minute for Kelsey to reactivate again, a few seconds after Bucky put down the glass, and when she did, it was because another Spanish song started playing in the club.

“Oh shit,” Kelsey said, the first verse blaring, Bucky laughing as she started dancing again. He danced with her, belting out the popular parts of the song with Kelsey and the rest of the club, the disco lights hitting his face every few seconds. Kelsey and her friend knew the rap part of the song, and they blew through it, word for word, taking a sip out of another drink on their table when they were done. Another song came on, and they danced some more, drank some more, laughed some more. They only went home after Kelsey danced on the bar and got escorted out by the bouncer.

“Guess we’ll have to find a new bar, then?” she said to Bucky, still laughing, heartbeat still an unnatural pace. His metal arm was over her shoulders, keeping her walking straight.

He chuckled, guiding her through the path to their apartment. “It’s your fault.”

“It’s not, it was the girl’s fault,” Kelsey stumbled, the picture of the girl they were with in her mind. “I don’t remember her name.”

“Monica?” Bucky asked.

Kelsey nodded even though she had no idea if that was her name. “Yes. Her.”

“It was  _ your _ idea, she just gave you the push,” he said, pulling her a little bit to the side of the road as an old-fashioned car blaring music passed by, ruining the quiet.

Kelsey giggled, knowing it was true. “She likes you,” she said.

“She likes me?”

“Yeah, there was this moment, a while ago,” she said, a sick feeling rising in her stomach, going down just as quickly, “she was like… I forgot what she said, but she–she likes you, Bucky, she wants your penis.”

He chuckled at her, obviously sobering up to the fact that Kelsey was far more intoxicated than he was.

“I didn’t notice,” said Bucky, watching her eyes get droopy, her walk get a little more slanted as they trudged up the street.

“You gonna go for her? She’s pretty.” Kelsey said to him, burping in her mouth a little bit.

“What?” He snorted, but Kelsey didn’t take it back. “Is that an actual question?”

She just shrugged.

Bucky paused and stopped in the street, looking at the girl beside him. “Mia, I like you,” he said, matter-of-factly, as she blinked her eyes open. “Do you not know that? I really like you.”

“I have to vomit.”

“What?”

“No, I really have to vomit,” Kelsey said, stepping away from Bucky’s arm just enough to tilt her head and puke on the floor.

Bucky stepped to the side and held her hair up in a makeshift ponytail. “Oh, Jesus,” he muttered as Kelsey continued to vomit everything they drank in the last hour, rubbing her back slowly. When stopped, Bucky carried her the rest of the way home easily, laying her down his bed and put her in his clothes, crawling into bed with her after, sleeping the same way they had been for the past couple nights.

Kelsey woke up with a headache, the light streaming in from the windows, Bucky’s arms still around her, and as much as she didn’t want to evacuate the position, her throat felt dry and gross, and she stumbled half-asleep into his kitchen and hastily gulped down some water.

Bucky was still asleep when she decided to sneak out of his room and check in on New York, just stopping by to kiss him while he was still unconscious.

“We got Guy Sanders,” Steve had told her the last time they spoke, and Kelsey was at a restaurant, watching Bucky order food for them from the seats.   
“Wow, that fast?”

“Yeah, but he won’t talk yet.”

“Try to get Nat to talk to him. You know Nat. She bats her eyelashes and men quiver,” she replied, gesturing ‘no’ to Bucky who was signaling if she wanted dessert.

“That’s the problem, Bruce and I are the only ones left here. Nat, Clint and Sam are looking into another possible camp in the opposite coast. Tony’s still at SHIELD because of the arc reactor squabble.”

“Cap, you’re notoriously bad at interrogations.”

“I wouldn’t say notoriously… anyway, just call me up for anything new on Bucky.” He hung up. Every time they’d call, she’d be filled with guilt, not telling him about the situation she got herself into with his best friend and incidentally, a killing machine. 

She was filled with guilt now, as she began to ring the tower again, thinking where in the conversation would the proper place to add, “oh, by the way, I’m sleeping with Bucky.” It just never seemed right, because it wasn’t.

The phone rang, and it was answered almost immediately. “Hey, kid, thank God,” Tony picked up, his mouth full.   
“Thank God? You’re thanking a higher being?” Kelsey asked. “What’s wrong? Are you eating?”

Tony mustered a chuckle, even though from across the sea she could feel it wasn’t genuine.

“Yeah. We hacked into McDonald’s server, got their pancake recipe. Made it for breakfast this morning, it’s delicious.”

“Tony.”

“We may need to rid you from babysitter duty for a little while again.”

“Oh?” said Kelsey, her heart leaping. “What’s going on? Yesterday everything was fine.”

“Well, there’s so much going on so fast and we only have so many people around,” he said. “There’s this whole new problem on the other side of the coast, then this whole vibranium thing, and then–”

Kelsey interrupted him. “Did you say vibranium? So we’re having some Wakandans over for lunch?”

“Yup. The princess asked for you, specifically. Anyway, it’s a whole mess here, we could really use you out on the field, kid.”

“I’m there,” Kelsey said, beginning to search for her backpack and her files.

“We’ll pick you up in a hour.” Tony dropped the call.

9:15  _ am _ , her phone read. Kelsey rushed through her stuff, packing everything she had settled onto the shelves in the last week she was back in Cuba, before jumping into the shower and getting dressed. She locked up her room, checking if all the surveillance she had on Bucky was working before she went back up to his room.

He was still asleep when she walked in, and she propped her bag and jacket on his chair before undoing her laces and kicking off her shoes. She had time, after all.

“Bucky,” she said quietly, the sight of his face making her a little less forceful than she would’ve been. He looked so fragile. So goddamn soft. His face was pressed up against his pillow, squished by his cheek, his lips all full and plump from sleep, and his arms were where she left them, and so she couldn’t help but touch him there, and he was all warm skin and soft breathing.

Bucky snorted a bit as he woke up, and Kelsey watched his pale eyes adjust to the morning ray and catch on. He smiled sleepily. “Morning,” he croaked, his voice just as deep as it was every damn day, but it still sent her stomach in shambles.

She knew she could hear a thousand times more and it still would be.

“I have to leave for work,” she said as Bucky’s arms wrapped around her, forcing her lay in bed with him.

“No,” he protested, kissing the top of her head. “Where are you going to this time?”

“Australia,” Kelsey said. “I think it’ll really be a nice opportunity for me to get promoted,” she added for a nice touch, snuggling into the boy beside her.

“Right now? You’re leaving right now?” His hands found the nape of her neck, and they touched her softly there.

Kelsey shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You know, I want you to kill it out there, but I don’t like this whole leaving me thing,” he said, voice low, gently nudging her head downwards to his face, kissing her on the mouth.

She smiled. “Don’t worry, I will kill it out there,” said Kelsey, a little too literally, inching closer on top of him to kiss him back, kiss him more, and her leg hit something hard as she tried to straddle him.

Bucky squirmed sheepishly when she saw what it was. 

“Sorry… it’s… it’s biology...” he muttered, as Kelsey stared at the bulge through his sweats. “I don’t make it to do this.”

Heat pooled between Kelsey’s legs a little too quickly as she looked at him hard, and the combination of his voice and his bare chest and stomach kind of started to drive her crazy in a matter of seconds. If Bucky knew how easily and how deeply he could do this to her, he’d be laughing. It was embarrassing.

She straddled him now, her crotch on his, licking her lips as she placed her hands on his bare shoulders. Her view of him was the best thing she’d ever seen; shirtless, perfect lighting, face a little bit puffy from sleep, and his eyes filled with a little more than the typical pale blue-green they were made of. She knew what he was thinking. He let her know, with his hands on her waist.

“Don’t I make it do that?” she asked, staring at him, tracing her eyes through every part of him she wanted to kiss, her hips gently moving against him.

Bucky licked his lips, and she watched, knowing she could be the one licking them, but not yet, she told herself. Not yet.

“You do,” he said, “quite often,” his voice sending heat up her legs, and when his hands snaked their way under her shirt and on her bare skin, just so goddamn softly to tease her, the heat intensified a little bit more. Kelsey lifted herself with her knees a little bit, unbuttoned her jeans, sliding down her zipper and reached into her underwear, fingers down her own pussy, as Bucky watched, his chest heaving just a bit, his mouth agape, and she took her fingers out to rub on the silhouette of his hard dick. 

“Fuck,” Bucky moaned, his abs clenching, and Kelsey slowly creeped her fingers under his waistband, rubbing him from outside his underwear.

He moaned a little more, and she would’ve liked to tease him just for a bit, but God, she wanted to see him squirm, so she pulled down his underwear just a little to show him the head of his cock, a little bit of precum on the tip, and began to lick at his penis, wrapping her wet mouth around it as his breathing changed rapidly.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, watching her watch what she did to him as she slowly wet his cock with her tongue, stroking it in her mouth before covering his dick back up in his sweats.

She lowered her face down to kiss him, rubbing herself, succumbing to the things her body ached for as his hands felt up her tits.

Bucky kissed her back like he was hungry, and he had the last of it, finally flipping her over and pulling her shirt off her body.

“Just tell me if you want me to stop,” he said, voice really low now, as he pulled down her bra just a bit to run his thumb over her nipple. “I might get a little rough if you tease me like that.”

Kelsey knew she’d never ask him to stop.

His hand played with her tits as the other pulled off her jeans, and when they finally came off, he pushed her legs open and touched how wet she was, her underwear shoved to the side.

“You’re always this wet for me,” he said, looking at her in the eye, and Kelsey trembled, moaning as he rubbed her clit slowly, sliding his fingers inside her a few times with his mouth on the side of pussy, licking her, teasing her, knowing she was dizzy with desire, and she knew it by now, that if she wanted his tongue on her she’d have to ask.

“Please,” she whimpered, out of breath, her legs weak. “Bucky. Bucky. Please.”

He looked at her, knowing what he was doing, and it turned him on to watch her whimper for his tongue. When he finally put it on her clit, her made sure to do it slowly, getting her riled up enough to cry for his name.

“Fuck,” she moaned, his tongue lapping on her folds, his saliva dripping down her soaked pussy, pulling away just before she could feel the high build up inside her. He could’ve made her cum in two minutes, and he had before, in a little bathroom in a restaurant a few days, but right now, they were here, and Bucky wanted to keep her whimpering and begging for as long as she could stand it.

When he pulled away, Kelsey pulled him by his shoulder. “Fuck me, please. Fuck me,” she said.

“How do you want it?” he asked quietly, voice low, stepping out of his sweats and stroking his dick in front of her.

“Go rough on me,” she whimpered, “please, fuck me, Bucky, make me cum.”

He crawled on top of her, his dick getting harder as she moaned his name, just aligning himself with her as he sucked on her nipple, bra just pulled down to reveal them to him, finally sliding himself inside her as she moaned his name on more time, his thrusts slow at first, but when Kelsey begged him to go faster he obliged quickly.

“Oh  _ fuck _ ,” she moaned a little too loudly when he began hitting her g-spot and sucking on her nipple at the same time. “Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ Yes, yes, yes. _ God _ , yes.”

She couldn’t stand it, her legs shaking at this point, his skin slapping against hers as she felt her high building up, her moans getting louder as she felt every inch of his dick inside her, filling her up and hitting her where she wanted him to, his tongue perfectly adding the tension to make her come with him inside her.

“Come for me,” Bucky whispered in her ear as she began to reach her high, bucking her hips against his as he thrusted, making her come so hard she didn’t notice how loud her moans had gotten, but Bucky relished in it, listening to his name in her voice as he felt himself start to feel his climax coming, too. Kelsey squirmed in pleasure as she orgasmed, feeling her body tingle all over, her own climax arriving in a tidal waves, and Bucky moaned, thrusting slower and slower as he rode out her orgasm, pulling out when she stopped moaning and stroking his cock to the sight of Kelsey on his bed, his cum landing on her stomach as he climaxed.

Bucky cleaned her off after a small peck on the lips as she fixed her bra and her underwear, and as soon as he was done, she sat up and put her clothes back on, watching him lovingly, thinking about how well he treated her.

“Wait?” Bucky said, walking back to bed. “You’re leaving? Right now?”

Kelsey buttoned her pants back on, zipping them up. “I got a car waiting for me downstairs at 10:15,” she said, checking the clock on Bucky’s wall, “and it’s 10:30.”

Bucky looked slumped. “But...”

“What, you gonna miss me or something?” she asked him, and he smiled.

“No,” muttered Bucky. “Just… when am I going to see you again?”

Kelsey smiled at him, lacing up her shoes. “Wow, the pussy’s that good?”

He burst out in laughter, and when Kelsey stood up, he was still laughing, but he hugged her, rubbing his hands on her back, his hands moving to her face to kiss her when she pulled away.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said.

A little too soon, it turned out.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hey, it’s a whole party over here!” Kelsey grinned as she exited the elevator, Sam following closely behind her. 

Shuri and T’Challa were already at the labs when she and Sam arrived back in Avengers Tower, hunched over one of the bigger floating screens in the lab beside Tony and Nat, and all turned to greet her when she walked into the room.

“Hey, kid,” Tony called out as Kelsey ran to hug Shuri with the a grin on both their faces.

Kelsey smiled at the two Wakandans. “Hey, king, hey, princess.”

“What took you so long, huh? We arrived nearly an hour ago,” T’Challa said to her, crossing their arms and breaking them in Wakanda greeting after a friendly hug.

“You have to forgive her, she was taking a primitive jet,” Shuri said.

Sam laughed, greeting the siblings as well. “Whoa, Tony, you hearing this? I love them already,” he chuckled a little too loudly, introducing himself to T’Challa and Shuri.

“Yup, she’s been clowning my tech since they got here,” Tony said with a sigh, not looking up from the what he was working on, Nat overseeing whatever it was.

“She wasn’t lying,” she hummed, and Shuri laughed.

Kelsey put her bag down by the floor and gestured for the fridge, and it appeared out of thin air and allowed her to get a juice before she gestured it to disappear again, leaning against the table.

“It’s been so long since Indonesia,” she said. “Where’s Nakia? I expected the entire Wakanda to be present, honestly.”

Shuri grimaced as Kelsey mentioned her name. “Oof.”

Kelsey looked at T’Challa, and he sighed, his expression that of hurt and discomfort masking behind a chiller facade. “We split up just a couple weeks ago, she’s a full-time War Dog now, but I have already moved on.”

“That’s what he says,” Shuri said surreptitiously and Kelsey laughed as T’Challa rolled his eyes, only stopping and turning their attention to Tony as he snapped his fingers to catch their attention.

When they looked, his eyes were glued to the screen.

“Hey, Kels, I know you’re a child–”

“I’m 25, Tony.”

“–but enough with the high school chatter, look at this.”

They made their way to the front of the screen, piling up to take a look, Shuri at the very front.

“There,” Tony said, pointing at a moving red dot through a map on the screen, “that’s the vibranium, just landed in Florida.”

Kelsey looked closer. “You  _ tracked _ vibranium? You can do that?”

“If my math is right, which it always is. So yeah, that’s your shipment right there, buddy,” he said to T’Challa, then looked at Shuri. “I win this round.”

She raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll give you that.”

“So what’s our play here? Do we even know their MO?” Nat asked.

“I do not care about that,” T’Challa said, “they stole a planeload of vibranium. If they are using it unauthorized, then they cannot be using it for good.”

Kelsey looked at them, all focused on the screen, but she was a little bit lost. “Hey, can I get a briefing? I missed a big chunk of this discussion.”

“A plane of vibranium we shipped out for our War Dog lab in London was intercepted today flying over the North Atlantic, two of our pilots dead,” T’Challa said, and Kelsey listened, sipping her juice.

Tony picked it up from there. “Heat signatures showed that in the same area they found the plane, there was a huge arc reactor blast and ion emission, so we linked that to the weapons in Mexico and the camp in Jersey.”

“Jersey?” Kelsey asked. “I thought we took that down.”

“Apparently not,” Tony said. “It stopped for a while after we rescued Helen, but it looks like,” he continued, swiping through the screen and showed a big glowing orb over the camp, “it got even worse. Hill says it’s possible. But now we know they’re getting a huge shipment of vibranium, we don’t know what they’ll do.”

“So we intercept it,” said Kelsey. “Sniper from 500 meters, take down the driver, steal vibranium back, right?”

Tony sighed. “No, we can’t do that, these guys have arc reactor technology in their guns enough to power this tower for a year.”

“They took down a Wakandan plane, that’s never been done before,” Shuri said.

“So we throw a couple grenades at them, stay real quiet,” Kelsey suggested.

“Or,” said Nat, “we stay really quiet and get it from the inside, leave before they notice.”

“Oh, they’ll notice,” Tony huffed.

“Not if they don’t know it’s gone,” Shuri said, and they all looked at her as swiped something from the beads on her wrist, and an image materialized right above it. Kelsey stared, then looked at Tony, who was appalled his tech was being beat once again.

“That’s… vibranium, isn’t it?” Nat asked, but Shuri shook her head.

“It’s a 3d scan of a prototype I created a while back of an explosive device that looks, weighs, and feels like vibranium, but I never got to finish it, I never got it to work right.”

Tony interjected. “We’ll finish it. Here, in this lab.”

“It took weeks just to find explosive chemicals that were light enough to pass for vibranium, it is not that easy.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have me,” Tony said. “We’ll have it done by tomorrow, then we locate the real vibranium, turn off alarms in the camp, replace it with the explosive stuff, set up a bit of surveillance, and then we bounce. In and out, just like that, and we wait for the perfect time to blow them up.”

Kelsey was listening. Everyone was listening, because it made sense.

“If you do not finish the explosives by tomorrow,” T’Challa asked, “then what is your plan b?”

Tony shrugged. “I’ve never needed one.”

***

“There, just put it there, and lock it for now. Killmonger won’t be back til later.” 

“Alright. Let’s hurry up, we have to be guarding the entrances.”

The guards left the warehouse, their heavy boots thudding against the floor before a loud screech told them they had locked the large door in the entrance. 

They waited a few seconds, listened in on the walls for a minute before Kelsey, Tony and T’Challa stepped out from hiding behind the other boxes, the room echoing with their footsteps now.

Tony looked around. “Alright, go time.”

And finally, it was. They had spent the last day in the lab, helping Shuri, brainstorming, analyzing every move they could expect the other side to do, running the plays over and over until it was running smoothly, until Tony and Shuri finished the vibranium grenades, and lab work was Kelsey’s least favorite thing. When the two were done and told Kelsey to suit up for the next morning, timing it perfectly to when the shipment arrived in Jersey, she couldn’t have been more thrilled to jump back into her suit, the familiar smell and weight of the cloth only reminding her how much she missed the field.

“Alright, Shuri, tell me when you see anything,” Kelsey said, as she ran to the farthest corner of the warehouse, climbing through the stacked boxes and then the railings to go even higher, her core engaged as she climbed up to the very top of the corner wall, about 30 feet from the ground, attaching the remote surveillance x-ray by the corner and switching it on. T’Challa was already beginning to unload the grenades, and Tony walked around looking for the Cradles around the huge warehouse.

“Yup, got it,” Shuri replied over the earpiece, and Kelsey jumped from the pole to the boxes, and back to the ground.

“Nice,” Tony said.

“Thanks.”

Shuri spoke again from inside the Avengers Tower. “It’s just taking a moment to analyze,” she said. “Alright, x-ray complete, big metal box right near the right corner, that’s where the ion emission signatures are.”

Kelsey and Tony began to walk towards it before Shuri finished her sentence, and the giant metal box was locked from the two corners, somehow locked against the floor. Tony cut through the metal locking one side with his ion arm as Kelsey cut through the metal on the other side with her vibranium butterfly knife like she was cutting butter.

“Is that the one we gave you last year?” Shuri asked, viewing her from the surveillance camera as Kelsey sliced through the metal and pried open the box.

“Yup,” Kelsey said.

“You guys just give vibranium out like wedding giveaways?” Tony asked like he was in disbelief as he helped her pry open the box fully to reveal a row of what looked like copies of the original Regeneration Cradle, but it wasn’t empty.

“Holy shit,” Kelsey said. T’Challa asked what was going on through the earpiece but she couldn’t respond. She didn’t know how to. She hovered one of her rings over the robot creature lying inside through the glass. “And a 95% match with the stuff Ultron and Vision were made of, except this isn’t powered by the sceptre.”

“Arc reactors,” Tony said quietly, staring at one of the robots in the long row inside the metal box. T’Challa’s footsteps thumped across the floor, Tony and Kelsey’s attention shifted towards him.

“This is what they were going to use the vibranium for?” T’Challa asked quietly.

“This is much fucking bigger than we expected,” Tony muttered.

“So we destroy it now, right here,” said T’Challa.

Kelsey crouched down, searching for the opening lever to the cradle, opening it up as she found it. “Can’t we just put in the fake vibranium inside the cradles and then set to explode when everyone’s inside the warehouse? Maximum casualties.”

“Or,” Tony muttered. “Or. We could re-program these machines to our system back in HQ and then control them from there.”

“You can do that? Right here?” asked Kelsey.

“Shuri, you want to give it a go?” Tony asked over the mic, pulling out one of the Cradles and opening it, holding the robot’s head close to his eyes. “This is pretty advanced, I think I can wire this to change the code and open through the internet, just catch the signal pinging off the nearest tower, my computers can do that. Open the IP tab on it and enter address 173.255.231.10, I think.”   
“That would require me to open a new system line since this existing one is connected to the surveillance camera,” Shuri said. “Give me a minute. Your computer’s still running on gigahertz. It’s like a MacBook.”

“Hey, that’s top of the line,” Tony replied defensively. “5.2 exaops per second.”

Kelsey looked at T’Challa. “Do you understand any of this?”   
“She’s always been the smart one,” he said, shrugging.

Tony still crouched down over the wires behind the robot’s head as Shuri spoke. “Got it,” she said, as the robot’s eyes glowed suddenly. “Got access. Connected to the Stark server now.”

“Alright, we gotta do this for about 15 more robots, and–”

The doors suddenly echoed a deep thumping sound, the wood creaking as they began to open up, and Tony, Kelsey and T’Challa dropped down behind the metal box, a pair of footsteps thudding across the ground.

“It’s just one white man, he’s heading towards the Cradles,” Shuri said into the earpiece.

“Just keep going, I got him,” Kelsey whispered to Tony, running around the left side of the box as the two widened their eyes at her, but she continued, sprinting quietly around the guard making his way to where Tony resumed to focus on reprogramming the robots.

She pulled out her paralyzer from her pocket as she sauntered closer, fully running towards the guard as he was about to take his first steps near the Cradle and jamming the tool into the guards neck. He dropped to the floor in an instant, his body rigid, and Kelsey began to run back, but the door creaked again.

“Fuck, screw it, we’re doing the bomb thing,” Tony said, pushing the arc reactor in his chest, fully covering himself in the Iron Man suit. “T’Challa, get the real vibranium out of here, now,” he said, voice loud now, and Kelsey ran as quickly as she could to the boxes, jumping on them and kicking them down on the floor to create a wall between the inflow of guards and the hole they were escaping from, pulling out her gun and firing as she landed.

As if on cue, two more guards entered the warehouse, and before they could, Tony shot at them and the fell to the ground.

“Go put the bombs in the Cradles, I’ll handle door,” Tony said, as she ran to the metal box, unloading her bomb gun as she opened the Cradle doors, pulling the tab on them and shoving them into the robots.

“We have 60 seconds before the first bomb goes off!” she yelled, opening another Cradle and throwing a bomb in.

“Wait, wait, Kelsey, those are cobalt bombs, those aren’t safe with fusion reactors like the arc reactor, the explosions can get too big,” Shuri said hurriedly, “you won’t survive that if you stay there.”

Kelsey was out of breath, jamming the bombs into the robots. “Then we still have 50 seconds to leave,” she said, breathing heavily as she finished.

“Tony! Let’s go!” she yelled, as T’Challa emerged back from the hole in the ground they left through.

“Vibranium’s in the jet,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Tony continued to blast the guards by the entrance, but the sheer number allowed them go through, just as Kelsey leapt to the top of the metal box. They fired at her, but they missed, T’Challa tackling one of the mean shooting at her, bullets just bouncing off his vibranium suit, leaping forward to claw one guard’s eyes out.

Kelsey missed another bullet, this time pulling out her knife as she jumped from the metal box onto the guard’s shoulders, stabbing him in the eye as another attacked her from behind, slicing her arm as she blocked his attack.

“Fuck,” she hissed at him, annoyed, punching him squarely on the jaw before throwing him over and smashing his face with her boot, slicing another incoming guard with her knife, leaving them both bleeding on the floor.

“30 seconds until the first bomb goes off,” Shuri warned from their earpiece, as Kelsey fought off the guards approached their escape hole.

She clocked one in front of her, elbowing the other behind her back, retrieving her knife and aiming it at the guard’s neck but he blocked her, hitting her on the side of her head, and she pulled her knife arm away to jam ito from a different angle, into his throat, spinning him around and kicking him onto another guard. They both toppled over and gave Kelsey some time to fight off another two approaching her, jumping up to kick one in the face, but the second got a hold of her foot, pulling her, and she bent her legs toward him, clocking another guard on the face with her elbow before pulling herself even closer to the guard, reaching over his head and slicing him through his eye, letting go of Kelsey’s leg in pain.

“15 seconds!” Shuri said. “Get out of there!”

Kelsey turned back to the hole to exit, but she was met with a hard punch as she turned, her cheek taking the brunt, falling as another hit her jaw, and she felt her hands being pulled into a handcuff behind her back in such a quick motion she couldn’t respond before they were locked.

She got up quickly as she saw the two guards approach her, jamming her head up in a headbutt and following it with a jab of her knee on his groin, crouching down quickly as the other guard punched her again, swiping her foot under his and crushing his nose with her boot when he fell to the ground.

“This isn’t my first fucking rodeo,” she muttered as she turned around, shoving another guard with her shoulders, crouching as he threw a punch and standing back up to kick him across the face and onto the floor.

“5 seconds! Get out of there now!” Shuri yelled into their earpieces as Kelsey ran towards the hole they escaped from, T’Challa just on her tail. 

“Wait, Tony!” Kelsey yelled, looking back as T’Challa ran straight into the hole.

“3 seconds! Tony, now!” Shuri said, as Tony threw something out the door of the warehouse, blasting the last guard standing with his fly thrusters as he glided into the hole with Kelsey and T’Challa, pushing them with his flight capacity as the first bomb exploded, the fire it caused chasing them down their escape hole. The first explosion was followed by a second, then a third, then a fourth, until Tony had pushed them far out enough into the sewage system that the booms were less ear-splitting.

“Holy shit,” Kelsey breathed out, her chest still beating, her arms still handcuffed behind her as Tony descended onto the ground when they approached the spot they cut open with a Mouse Hole to the surface where they left T’Challa’s jet.

“Alright, good job, guys,” Tony said, his mask retreating into his suit to reveal his face, then looking at  Kelsey. “You got handcuffed?” he asked as T’Challa fumbled with the beads on his wrist to reveal a ladder. Kelsey shrugged as she faced her hands towards Tony, cutting through the metal with his repulsors.

“She fought off three guards with her hands behind her back, give her a break,” said T’Challa, beginning to climb up the ladder, Kelsey making a face at Tony before climbing up the ladder, who flew up the crevice in the ground and closed it.

“Heading back to the tower now,” T’Challa said over their earpieces as the jet lifted through the sky, zooming at a pace Kelsey only ever experienced in the Wakandan jets. “I don’t think we’ll be staying for dinner, Shuri, we have to contact all the War Dogs for the other vibranium shipments and reprogram the shipping method we implemented. Contact the other tribes and call for a meeting as soon as we land back in Wakanda.”

“Copy that,” Shuri said.

A few minutes of silence followed as they zoomed through the sky, heavy breathing in the air, letting them catch their breaths and calm their heartbeats. She missed this. Kelsey was the first to speak.

“Did we lose all the fake vibranium to explosion?” she asked. “And what’s for dinner? I’m starving.”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Tony began, only his head outside the suit, “but I do know they saved the vibranium.”

“They did?”

“I pretended to try and steal it,” he said, “they weren’t taking it, and the bombs were about to go off. You know they’re just good fighters but the men down there are assclowns.”

“They only remembered to take it when you did?” Kelsey asked.

Tony nodded. “They’re not very bright,” he replied as Kelsey chuckled.

Dried blood was still stuck to the side of her face, a bruise and a mild concussion in her head, her knuckles hurt, and she was still sporting the handcuffs on her wrists, but when she saw the big A on the tall skyscraper in the skyline, the sunset coming to a close as the sky turned into a orange-purple ombre, she felt fine. Just fine. And she thought that maybe even tomorrow, she could come back to Cuba, back to Bucky.

“Landing into the tower now,” T’Challa said.

“I’ll meet you at the garage,” replied Shuri, saying her goodbyes to everyone in the lab. T’Challa pulled up into the the tower, descending so smoothly Kelsey didn’t realize they were on the ground. Steve’s voice took over the earpiece.

“Shuri’s on her way down. I just got back to the tower,” he said.

“You went out to get milk, Cap?” Kelsey asked jokingly as she got up from the seat on the jet. 

“Not exactly.”

“See you soon, king,” she said to T’Challa, beginning to walk out. “Call us if you find anything else.” She made the Wakanda symbol with her arms and he nodded, making the symbol back as Kelsey left the jet.

“Nice job,” she said to Shuri next, who was waiting by the entrance of the elevator.   
“You too,” Shuri smiled, running into the jet after they exchanged Wakandan greetings, Kelsey heading up to the elevator.

Tony followed her closely behind, hitting the arc reactor on his chest as they went up the building, his suit disappearing again, the small wires and gears whirring, leaving him in his normal clothes.

“When you do that,” Kelsey asked, looking at him, “where does it go?”

Tony stared at her. “Seriously? You asked me this like, 10 times when you got drunk that one time.”

“I just want to know,” she said in protest.

“I’m not even going to answer that.”

“I just want to  _ know. _ ”

Tony tapped his feet, looking around the lift’s interior. “This elevator is so slow, isn’t it?”

“Come on, just explain it to me one last time, and I’ll–” said Kelsey, beginning to laugh as the elevator dinged open to one of the R&D floors, “and I’ll ask again next time!”

They walked out of the lift, their footsteps thudding against the floor. “Hey Cap,” she said quickly at Steve, who was standing by one of the screens, as Tony rolled his eyes jokingly.

“Why don’t you ask your friend Shuri to explain it to you, she’s smart,” he said, walking ahead of her to the main computer.

“Oh, come on. Cap, do you know how–” Kelsey began again, laughing, but she paused. She paused like  _ hell _ , her heart completely going full stop and dropping right down her stomach as she moved her eyes towards a movement in her peripherals.

She looked at Steve. Then she looked back. She blinked.

“Oh yeah, got a little surprise for you,” Steve said to her, smiling. Like it was funny.

It wasn’t.

“Mia? What are you doing here?”


	13. Chapter 13

It was a full minute before anyone spoke again, and it wasn’t either of them.

“This is awkward,” said Nat, walking into the room with a mug in her hand. She sipped it. “Why is it awkward? How’d the mission go?” she asked, looking at Kelsey.

Bucky walked closer, looking at Black Widow and then back at Kelsey in complete confusion.

“Cap, couldn’t you have just surprised me with a pony or something?” Kelsey breathed out.

“He got ambushed in Cuba today,” Steve said. “Got an alert and I choppered in, picked him up on the roof of your apartment building, but I didn’t get a visual on the attacker.”

Kelsey looked at Bucky. “Who else knows where his location is? And is Buck–”

“Buck?” Nat asked, walking around to see him, and Tony followed. “Hey, you’re the one who gave me this,” she added, and Bucky took her eyes off Kelsey to look at the scar on Nat’s stomach. They talked for a while, but Kelsey couldn’t hear any of it, her head thumping, her heart thumping just as fast.

She had a concussion, several bruised knuckles, a knife cut on her arm, a bloody cheek and bruise, but none of that hurt compared to how it felt when she realized that this was it.

This was the moment she’d been dreading since she and Bucky started developing any sort of relationship. She knew it had to happen, that it was a when and not an if, but God, she didn’t expect it to happen so soon, and even if she had anticipated it, it didn’t make it hurt any less, especially when he looked at her. He had never looked at her like that before. The Bucky stroking her back and kissing her on her cheek softly, the Bucky who apologized for rough sex was gone.

“Oh, yeah, and Buck, I’d like you to meet Agent Cruz,” Steve said, pointing to Kelsey this time, and Bucky’s eyes followed. “How was the mission?” Cap asked, then pointed at the handcuffs. “Why the...”

“It was fine, Cap,” said Kelsey, a little dazed, possibly from the concussion, but most probably from the fact that Bucky was standing there, looking at her. “Vibranium came back with T’Challa, turns out they were building robots powered by arc reactors in the Cradles, but we blew them up,” she continued, walking towards the screen, hovering her ring over it, and a gallery appeared of the things she had scanned, choosing the last scan of the robots, and it blew up on the screen, details listed by the side. “It’s what they were going to use the vibranium for,” she said, glancing at Bucky, who was staring at her, back and forth with the screen. “M.O. we aren’t sure yet.”

“It’s Ultron all over again,” Cap muttered, staring at the screen. Kelsey looked back at Bucky, taking a few steps toward him.

He was looking at her still as she walked closer, but something in his eyes softened. It felt so wrong to Kelsey being this close to him and not being able to touch him.

“Come on,” she said, giving him a smile, “let’s talk in private,” taking a deep breath, she walked to the inventory, getting ready for a difficult conversation, a conversation she wished she never had to have.

She heard Bucky started to say something as they walked into the inventory room, stopping quickly, starting up again and stopping. “So this is your ‘work trip,’ huh,” he said quietly, his eyes roaming the shelves.

Kelsey glanced at him, putting back a couple guns she wasn’t able to use in the gun shelves, patting down the rest of her suit. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath, removing her earpiece so no one could hear. “Let me start,” she muttered quietly, taking off her holster and returning it to to where she got it earlier that day. “I’m not Mia Santiago.” Bucky scoffed like,  _ duh _ . “My name is Kelsey Cruz. I work here. I don’t work at some social media bullshit website,” she said, looking at Bucky. “I work here. And a few weeks ago, a couple of weapons were stolen and people were killed at this agency–”

“SHIELD.”

“SHIELD, yeah,” Kelsey nodded, removing her drop leg holster and continued. “They thought you might be behind it. Steve wanted you to be safe and make sure it wasn’t you, and he couldn’t just send anyone. He sent me because you don’t know who I am and I don’t answer to SHIELD.”

Bucky listened, eyes straying away from her. “So this whole goddamn time, huh?”

Kelsey was quiet. There was a dangerous quality in his voice, a certain inflection she’d never heard before. She could have guns shooting at her and it wouldn’t faze her a bit, but right now, she was scared, and she had no fucking clue why.

“Why did you do that?” Bucky asked when she didn’t respond.

Kelsey breathed. “I had no choice, it was a mission,” she said quickly, “if I did I–”

“You had a choice,” Bucky groaned, looking at her incredulously. “Your mission was to keep me safe, make sure I wasn’t working for the bad guys again. But we went on dates. You practically moved into my apartment, we–we–” he spluttered, his voice a little raised now, and he was looking at Kelsey with a mixture of emotions on his face, none of them pleasant. “We slept together. I slept next to you.” He said this so quietly, so softly, nothing left in his voice but hurt, the pale blue-green eyes she missed so full of sadness.

Kelsey couldn’t think of anything to say. “I was bored,” she finally muttered, standing sheepishly, a holster in her hand, a knife in the other. She wanted to stab herself with it as she said the words.

“Wow,” he breathed, the look on his face completely pained. “I’m glad I could be your hobby, then.”

“No,” Kelsey muttered, panic rising in her chest. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

Bucky shrugged. “Yes it was. I get it now.”

And he left. He took one last look at Kelsey before he walked out of the inventory, and when he left, it didn’t just feel like he left the room.

It made her heart heavy, watching him leave, and not many things did. Her threshold for things that truly upset her was so high because she’d been through a lot of bullshit, but this got to her, and she couldn’t deny it, even to herself.

Kelsey put back all the knives and the guns in the inventory, throwing off her suit once she reached her room, and took a shower, attempting to wash off the day, wash off the feelings, just cleanse herself of everything she didn’t want to feel. Blood dripped down the drain, her face stinging as the soap and hot water hit her skin, and it hurt, but it was a relief to be hurting from something that was real.

What she and Bucky had wasn’t.

It didn’t make sense for it to hurt as much as it did.

Kelsey always slept like a goddamn log after missions, but tonight she slept a little less soundly, and when she woke up, it was almost a relief she didn’t have to stay in bed and force rest on herself anymore. She didn’t even check the clock when she left her room, trudging down to the kitchen.

“You’re up early,” Nat said, already pouring herself coffee, her hair in a braid, wearing workout clothes.

“Is it?” Kelsey grabbed a banana and took a bite. “What time is it?”

“Seven forty-five.” Nat checked her clock. “Wanna spar with me?”

Kelsey did, very much so, and so she chomped on her banana and ran upstairs to change into some workout clothes, gulping down some water as she walked into the tower’s gym.

“I missed having another fighter in this place,” said Nat as they stretched side by side, morning light creeping into the boxing ring, some upbeat music blaring through the sound system.

Kelsey smiled. “Sparing with Wanda must not be very fun.”

“No. God no,” laughed Nat, crouching over to enter the boxing ring. “But come on, between you and me, bare hands, we can take all of these dudes down.”

“Oh,” scoffed Kelsey, jumping around the ring to warm herself up, “with our hands tied.”

Nat laughed, starting to spar, kicking Kelsey as she crouched down to dodge it and punching Nat from below. She blocked it, kicking her knee up to Kelsey’s chin but she missed as Kelsey threw another punch as she stood up, Nat blocking it with her arm. She used her other one to punch Kelsey in the jaw, her fist hitting her skin right before Kelsey kicked Nat across the stomach, following it up with a jab of her elbow. Nat stumbled, jumping back quickly, throwing punch after punch as Kelsey blocked them, focusing hard, because Nat was fast, faster than anyone she’d ever fought recently, and she swept her feet across the floor, tripping her over. 

They didn’t stop, just continuing to throw punch after punch, throwing each other on the floor and coming back up with kicks and attacks.

“Hey,” Kelsey said, fully sweating at that point, her cheeks flushed, breath heavy as she threw punches at Natasha, who blocked it with just as much speed. “I got in a bit of a bind.”

“What kind?” Nat asked, jamming her fist into Kelsey’s chin, the other using the space the impact gave her to jump up and jam her leg, then her knee into Nat’s stomach.

Nat punched her back and Kelsey blocked it as she spoke. “It’s… I was in Cuba for a while, right?” she said, thrusting her hand across Nat’s head.

She blocked it and twisted her arm. “Yeah, with Barnes.”

Kelsey spun around in the same direction and jammed her elbow into Natasha. “Yeah,” she breathed heavily, “and while I was there, we kind of...”

“Kind of what?” Nat asked, spinning around and blocking the attacks Kelsey was throwing.

“We kind of started...”

“What?” Nat kicked her.

Kelsey swiped her hand to block it. “We kind of slept together.”

“What?”

“A couple times.”

Nat dropped her fists and stared at Kelsey, both of them out of breath, but only one of them looked ashamed. They stood there for a moment, catching their breaths, staring at each other in dumbfounded silence, until Nat finally spoke.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

Kelsey could only nod, trying to read the other girl’s face, sweat trickling down her neck and into her soaked shirt.

“Nice,” said Nat, laughing a little. “He’s...” she gestured to her body and Kelsey laughed, nodding. “But Kelsey, are you dumb or something? That’s the Winter Soldier. And you were on a mission!”

She breathed, sitting down on the floor of the ring, wiping her forehead sweat on her shirt.

“I know… I haven’t told Cap.”

“You have to,” Nat breathed out, then paused. “Seriously? And a  _ couple _ times? Not just one accidental… slip up?”

Kelsey sipped some water. “Well, not a couple times...” she muttered. “It was more like a lot of times.”

“Jesus,” laughed Nat. “You had your fun down there, huh? Is that why it was so awkward yesterday when you saw him in the lab?”

“Yup. And he was so mad at me.”

Nat was still chuckling, sipping some water as well. “Explain it to me though. If you did it  _ a lot  _ of times what does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m a woman,” Kelsey moaned, and Nat laughed. “And he’s...” she continued, trailing off, thinking of the right words to explain Bucky’s face, his voice, his damn body, but nothing came to her in the form of a brainwave. “He’s… so good,” she finally said.

Nat grinned. “Seriously? I didn’t… need to know that, but now that I do...” she said, laughing.

“I gotta tell Cap, don’t I?”

“Don’t worry, Cap already knows.”

As if on cue, Steve spoke, walking into the gym, Sam falling behind, wrapping up his fist with some sort of gauze, both of them in workout gear as well. Kelsey froze, her heart thumping excessively faster, and not in a way she appreciated.

“I was looking for you,” said Steve, “you and I need to talk about that.”

Kelsey stood up, leaving Nat sitting in the right, chugging down some water. Sam chuckled at her as she walked passed.

“You’re getting your ass whooped,” he said as Kelsey sat in front of one of the bean bags on the chair, and thus began the longest 20 minutes of her life.

Cap looked at Kelsey.

“You look great, Cap,” she said, smiling. “New haircut? You’ve been benching a lot?” He didn’t smile back.

“Bucky told me everything.”

“Everything?” Kelsey asked.

Steve finally spoke. “You slept with him, you date him, you practically move in with him, and all you report back to me is that you hang out?”

Nat stood up, leaving the boxing ring. “You  _ what _ ?”

“Oh, damn,” Sam muttered quietly.

“Okay, Cap, listen,” Kelsey said slowly. “I didn’t mean to, I was just staying in character! I didn’t want him to question my actions, I had to follow through, I mean–”

Steve shook his head. “You didn’t have to do that, you could chosen a different persona? You were too close to him, he could’ve stumbled on one of your files or something.”

“Cap, come on, give me a break, it was really boring there.”

“That is really, truly not an excuse,” Steve sighed, crossing his arms. “You should have  _ told  _ me, Kelsey. And Jesus, that was so inconsiderate to Bucky, you didn’t think about that?”

And of course, just Kelsey’s luck, Tony walked in, fully clad in workout gear. “What’s happening? Isn’t this the gym?”

“Kelsey slept with the Winter Soldier,” Nat said.

Kelsey looked at her, and then looked at Sam and Steve for help, but they gave her a look that let her know it wasn’t happening.

Tony looked at her, pointing his finger. “Why is my first instinct to be proud of her?”

“Tony,” Steve groaned.


	14. Chapter 14

She was in Bucky’s bed. Naked, hair ruffled, a little sore. 

“You hungry?” Bucky asked, returning from the bathroom, wiping his hands on a towel, now in a pair of sweatpants. He jumped back onto the bed and tucked himself close to Kelsey.

She smiled. “I could eat.”

“You want me to whip something up for you?”

“Depends on how well you could whip it up,” she said. Bucky kissed the arm that wasn’t covered in his blanket. 

“Well, challenge accepted,” Bucky smirked at her and kissed her again, right on the mouth this time.   
Kelsey laughed, searching for the shirt she was wearing before Bucky stripped it off her an hour ago, putting it on as she responded to him.

“Should I be worried for my health?” she teased him, while he turned on the stove and started heating up some pans.

Bucky laughed. “No.”

“Should I be planning for my funeral?” she asked, slipping on her underwear.

He laughed some more. “Any specific songs you want to be played while I carry your casket?”

“Something fun I can dance to when I’m in hell,” she responded nonchalantly as she slipped out of bed and took a few steps to his kitchen area, where he laughed. The light was still harsh outside, and it bathed his apartment in perfect light, drenching him as well, augmenting the crevices of the muscles on his back and his arms. Kelsey stared at the gorgeous boy making her a meal, and funnily enough, her first instinct was to kiss him. She curbed the craving, looking around his apartment and turned on the radio, so his apartment flooded with a Spanish song they’ve been hearing for a while, and to Kelsey’s surprise, Bucky began to sing, turning around to face her as he covered the pan and turned down the heat on the stove.

“Wow,” she smiled at him, walking towards the table, eyebrows raised as his voice perfectly followed the acoustic rhythm playing on the radio. “What other secret talents have you been keeping?”

“Okay, here’s one,” he said, smiling softly, watching Kelsey as she took the last few steps towards him, pulling her just as soon as she was close enough. “I can dance.”

Kelsey laughed, pulling away, expecting a show. “Well, show me then.”

“No, no,” Bucky licked his lips, looking at her a little too tenderly and pulling her back, “dance with me.”

“I am not dancing. I don’t dance.”

“Yes you do,” said Bucky, his face amused, pulling her close to him, starting to sway a little bit. “Kate has video evidence that you–”

“Oh, no,” Kelsey laughed, and Bucky stared at her as she did, grinning back, “I only dance after 10 shots and in crowded bars.”

“Come on,” he chuckled quietly, bending down his neck to kiss her chin, already swaying and putting her hands on his shoulders, and the feeling of his lips on her skin sent tingles up her legs and her stomach, and she didn’t fight it anymore. Kelsey let him hold her by the waist, following his steps, watching him look at her with amusement as the music played on.

Bucky grinned at her, chuckling. “See? Not so bad.”   
“Really?”

“Yeah, only a little bad,” he said encouragingly as Kelsey laughed, and he changed positions, taking one of her hands in his and snaking his other arm to her back, pulling her closer so Kelsey’s breath was hitting the flesh on his neck, and he continued, smiling at her like it wasn’t sending chills up his body, the music continuing its slow pattern. It was the first time Kelsey had ever danced with someone to a slow song, and this was killing her, how intimate this was, how wholesome and sincere Bucky was being. It sent a whole new breed of emotions inside her, a whole new roster sitting uninvited on her chest. It was never meant to be like this, looking up at Bucky’s unshaved chin, his chiseled face and jaw and his gorgeous eyes–more green in this light–looking at her a little too tenderly, she had no choice but to accept that this was real, that she was smitten. And when it ended, they didn’t pull away.

They burned the eggs that afternoon.

Now, it was about a month later, and when Kelsey walked into the kitchen, she saw Bucky for the first time in days, the eggs he was cooking seemed to be perfectly fine.

God, she missed him. The sight of him, just in a t-shirt, his hair a little bit longer and his chin with a little more stubble than usual made her forget everything that was previously on her mind. And she  _ missed _ him, so much more than she realized she did, that it was physical. She felt it in her chest. Her body wanted to run to him and tackle him with a kiss, and it took all her strength to just speak.

“Hey, Buck,” she said, walking towards the coffee maker instead. Kelsey was supposed to get a yogurt and granola from the fridge, but that flew out of her mind the moment she saw him.

When he looked up, it took a second before he smiled. “Good morning,” he said.

“How are you?” she asked him. It was painful.

“I’ve been fine.” Kelsey watched him scrape his eggs onto a plate. “You’re heading out for a mission again today?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. She was nervous. “How about you?” she asked, realizing in a second that what she said was the dumbest shit to ever leave anyone’s mouth. Bucky looked at her. She’d look at herself if she could.

He smiled. A real smile. Kelsey stared at him. “No, I’m–I mean–I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay,” he said, carrying his plate and a cup with him, walking away. “Take care. I’m just gonna go eat outside.”

“Okay,” Kelsey breathed out, watching him step out in the balcony. Her heart fell into her stomach as he did. That was it? That was all they were going to say? The last time they’d been apart for that long she couldn’t spend a second away from him, but now, it was like that had never happened, like she wasn’t anyone important, anyone he’d care to talk to for a little bit. Her heart was beating hard, sweating underneath her shirt, but her palms were cold and nervous. She was supposed to head up to the lab and the inventory, get a few stuff she’d need for her mission with Erik that day, and leave, but she forgot all of that, none of it in her head at that point, as she stood alone with a cup of coffee going cold, thinking about Bucky.

She took a deep breath, said ‘fuck it,’ and marched out to the balcony.

“Can you tell me what’s really happening?” she said, voice shaking just a little bit as she looked at Bucky, sipping a cup of coffee with a crossword open on the table.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

He looked too peaceful, sounded too peaceful, and it hurt her to think that he was keeping his peace when she was catatonic, overthinking and analyzing every breath she took around him.

“Just tell me,” she said, breathing in, trying to relax herself, and it was almost too easy to as she looked at him, because every other time she had in the past it was nothing but pleasant. “Just tell me what you want to happen. I can’t be okay just forgetting everything.”

Bucky sighed. His eyes were sad. “You expect us to pick up where we left off?”

“No,” said Kelsey.  _ But I really wish we could. _ “I just gotta know where this is going, Buck.”

He was quiet, and he stayed still, his eyes not entirely on her, and the perfect glow of the early morning combined to actually give her a good look of him, an actual analysis. His skin was a little bit paler, just a little bit–no more of the subtle tinge of golden sun in his cheeks from when they were still in the Havana sun. There were bags under his eyes, and his beard had grown out a little bit more so there was a dark shadow all over his chin and mouth. He still looked tight as hell under his t-shirt, and from the thin fabric Kelsey could see the curves of his abs and the details on his metal arm, but mostly, he looked tired, a sad kind of tired you wouldn’t notice at first because he was still an Adonis.

When he spoke, he spoke quietly. “You have to give me time.”

“I have given you time.”

He chuckled, a little bit incredulous. “It hasn’t even been a week.” He looked at her. “Kelsey, right?” She only nodded, and he continued. “What you did to me isn’t easy for me to digest, you don’t get that. I don’t expect you to get how hard that was for me,” he was breathing heavier, “but you gotta give me time before you demand an answer.”

Kelsey took a deep breath.  _ No _ , she wanted to say.  _ No, Bucky, you know right now whether you still want this or not, you know it in your heart, stop pulling this bullshit _ . Instead, though, she nodded. “Okay.”

Bucky nodded back. “Take care on your mission,” he said, as Kelsey smiled at him and left the balcony, walking back into the kitchen. Sam was pouring himself some orange juice.

“Morning, sam,” Kelsey said.

“Hey,” he said. “Is that Bucky outside?”

“Yeah.”

“You guys talking now?”

Kelsey shrugged. “Kind of.”   
Sam chuckled a bit, nodding sadly. “Give him time.”

“What, you guys are friends now, huh?” she smiled, genuinely happy Bucky was finding company in the Avengers.

“You know, when he’s not shooting at you, he’s a cool guy,” Sam said nonchalantly. “I wouldn’t sleep with him, though.”

Kelsey laughed, walking to the elevator. “That’s cold.”

Erik was already in the garage when Kelsey arrived after pocketing a few stuff at the inventory, and when she saw him, she couldn’t help but smile.

“Wow,” she said, laughing a bit.

“You like the look?” Erik smiled, spreading his arms so Kelsey could take a full look at his outfit. Sherpa-lined denim jacket over a white t-shirt, a few beads around his neck, ass-fitting jeans, white boy shoes, and to top it off, gold-framed specs she knew he didn’t need.

Kelsey smiled. “Very… white.”

“Don’t insult me like that,” Erik groaned playfully as they walked away from the building, Kelsey looking around for a helicopter or a jet.   
“What are we taking?” she asked.

“Oh, you’re looking for a spaceship or something?” asked Erik. “Not to disappoint you, but we’re taking something a little bit cuter.” He pointed at something as they walked the stairs towards their ride.

Kelsey almost laughed. “Is that a Volkswagen?”

“Wow, you got a little cocky getting used to your Teslas up here in Manhattan, huh?” Erik snorted at her, grinning, walking up the car first and opening the door for her, giving Kelsey the chance to check his ass out. Still tight. Always had been.

Kelsey laughed, getting into passenger seat. “Hey, I was just asking!” Erik smiled at her, closing her door before jumping into the front seat and driving out of the garage.

It was a few minutes before anyone spoke again, Erik navigating his way through the city traffic, checking an application on his phone every now and then, and it gave Kelsey time to subtly ogle at him. He didn’t look the same since the times they were doing Black Ops all those years ago; he looked better. Way better. She didn’t know if it was just the outfit, or the new dreadlocks, but he looked good. 

“You gotta stop staring at me,” he said, chuckling after a while.

Kelsey smiled. “What have you been up to these days? Why do you look so swole?”

“Ooh,” smiled Erik, “I like that. _ Swole _ . But stop flirting with me, we have to focus.” 

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, fuck you,” she said. “Come on, brief me again.”

Erik looked at her as she laughed, glancing quickly and turning his eyes back on the road, rounding a corner as his arms turned the wheel. “We’re looking for this white dude,” he said, pulling up a photo on his phone, and Kelsey studied the man’s face. “He’s working on the robot things with the people in Jersey at this sort of satellite office in Bay Ridge in some kind of community center. We’re going in today because there’s this big event happening in the front, people are gonna be coming in and out all day, we’ll just blend right in.”

“Alright,” said Kelsey, watching the road as they drove through the unfamiliar town. “So what’s the plan? Are we killing this guy?”

“No, we take him back for interrogation, probably just lay him out, and we’re looking for some of these vials… I don’t know what’s in it, but it’s part of the assignment.” He pulled up a photo of a vial with a silvery liquid inside.

“Okay, copy that,” Kelsey replied. “Are we close to the community center?” She started checking her watch.

“We’re still about an hour away.”

“An hour?”

Erik started laughing. “You already tired of my company?”

She wasn’t, and the hour passed by a little too quickly when they started talking and laughing, reminding Kelsey of who she was with, why they shared quite an intricate past. The community center was a small building, but the crowd surrounding it was huge, and when they rolled down the car windows, they could hear a horrible local band playing, the sound coming from the front of the center.

“Come on, security room first, we gotta keep the cameras on the concert grounds,” Erik said to her as they walked into the crowd, the smell of beer and body odor combining the unpleasant music.

Kelsey nodded, staring back at a guy who was staring at her until he looked away. “What’s our play?”

“Stoned couple?” Erik asked, smiling at her as he swung his arm around her shoulder.

“Alright,” she shrugged.

The crowd was rowdier in the middle, a lot drunker, too, everyone jumping around and singing along to the artist’s rendition of an older song Kelsey recognized.

“There,” said Kelsey after scanning the side of the grounds and finding an entrance. “Bathroom.”

They walked through the thick crowd, singing along with everyone else, dancing a little bit to blend in, Erik’s hand draped around her shoulder. He leaned against her when he spotted a guard at the entrance. “Laugh at something I said,” he whispered in her ear.

Kelsey complied, laughing as instructed, the pitch a little too high for Erik to believe it was a real laugh, and they walked into the bathroom, scanning around the halls for another pathway towards the offices.

“Security room’s on the third floor,” Erik said, as they walked through the halls, passing by the bathroom, and a few more offices, the people less and less as they walked deeper into the building. The music and the crowd’s yelling were a little quieter when they reached the back staircase, and it was completely silent when they shut the door. They crept slowly back into the third floor when they reached it, Erik going first.

“They have eyes on this floor and there’s a guard making rounds,” he whispered.

“I’ll take care of this, you go get the camera guy,” she whispered back, shoving past Erik into the floor, her footsteps no longer silenced. Erik hissed at her to wait, but she walked into the floor and into the guard’s line of sight.

“Ma’am, you’re not allowed to be on this floor,” he said, pacing towards her, Kelsey meeting him halfway, swinging a punch before the man could digest what was happening, then swiping his feet and falling to the ground before he even knew he was punched. 

“Go, now,” she hissed at Erik for a second while climbing on top of the fallen guard, locking his hands behind his back and taking his gun, as Erik’s footsteps ran across the hall towards the security room. Kelsey quickly hovered her wristband over the guard’s forehead as he struggled to stand up, and he collapsed in a second, and she tied him up and shoved him into a broom closet, running back out into the hall and looking for the security room.

Two men were tied on the floor when Kelsey opened the door to the room, Erik already toggling around the controls in the room, the views on the screen switching around.

“There’s our guy,” Erik said as Kelsey walked closer, and he pointed towards a man on what was labelled to be the seventh floor. “He’s got security with him and another two by the entrance of the lab.”

“This is the security room, right?” Kelsey said, looking around the knobs she didn’t recognize. “So we send these first two downstairs, alert the two inside and knock them out while they’re checking, and we can bag up our main guy easy.”

Erik looked at the screen. “Okay, nice,” he said, then raised one finger at her in a shush, levelling his mouth towards the mic, turning a few knobs. “Requesting backup downstairs, ground floor, phase one,” he said in the smoothest voice, Kelsey couldn’t help but smile.

“Copy,” echoed the guards back, Erik switching the screens to show the two guards leaving their post on the seventh floor, then switching them back to a different view when they had fully left the floor.   
“Come on,” Kelsey said as soon as he did, briskly walking out of the security room and looking for the staircase, Erik closely on her tail.

He spoke as they had just jogged up, reaching the fifth floor. “Remember the mission in Samarra?” he asked as they ran up the staircase.

She did remember. She wrapped up 26 confirmed kills that day, her highest. “I’m trying to lessen my body count these days,” Kelsey said, smiling.   
“They got you all soft, sitting on your feather pillows up in Manhattan, huh?” Erik chuckled as they ran up the last staircase and rounding a corner towards the floor, Kelsey quickly retrieving a pair of taser cuffs and handing one to Erik while they walked the expanse of the hallway, the doors of the lab situated near the end.

She shot Erik a look and he nodded, knocking on the door of the lab, and quickly copying Kelsey as she hid by the wall, angled just enough to see what was going on. There was a rumbling inside the lab, and a few seconds later, a guard stepped out. Erik slammed his fist onto the man’s cheek, Kelsey diving in not a moment after to cuff him up as the second guard raced out, pointing his gun at them. Kelsey slammed the guard’s fist away, his gun falling to the floor and Erik rushed into the lab, making a rustling noise as she clocked the guard and kneed him, cuffing him up as he fell to the floor, shaking from the cuff’s electricity, but Kelsey wasn’t able to watch.

“They got back up!” she yelled at Erik.

Four guards rushed up from the stairs after the ruckus, the sound of their footsteps giving her time to pull up the fallen guard’s gun and shoot at the oncoming men, hitting only one of them in the stomach. The three rained fire on her and she crouched quickly, hiding behind the lab doors until the firing stopped. Kelsey rushed out as soon as it did, throwing an attachment bomb at one of the guards and it clung onto his uniform, exploding just as she was able to clock one of the other guards on the face, and as he stumbled off balance, she swerved to avoid a punch thrown at her by the second man grabbing the unloaded gun from his hand and hitting him straight across the face with it, just fast enough to grab the first guard by the head and slam his face onto her knee. Kelsey finished him off with a hard kick to his crotch, and he toppled over while she kicked the other man onto the floor, stepping on his face hard with her boot.

“Come on,” Erik emerged from the lab as if on cue, a man on his shoulders.

“Let’s go back to the security room,” said Kelsey as they jogged down the stairs, watching the halls for any passersby. “Call for an emergency on the seventh floor so no one sees us leave.”

They ran down the staircase, Kelsey out of breath and her heart pumping, knife in her hand just in case, her eyes and ears dialled to eleven as they watched out for anyone that could’ve seen them, running through the hall when they reached the third floor.

Erik put down the man over his shoulder when they got into the security room. The two men lay still unconscious on the ground while he pulled up the mic, switching views on the cameras. “Emergency on seventh floor,” he said in his smooth voice, Kelsey watching him, catching her breath and standing with her hands on her hips. “All guards report to seventh floor immediately.”

He toggled with the controls a little bit more, panning through the areas of the building, and the guards moved all at the same time.

“Copy,” one of them said, walking from every part of the building towards the second floor. 

Erik and Kelsey listened in for the stampede of their boots as they ran through the third flight on the way to the seventh, and as soon as they were out of earshot the two exited the security room and ran down the stairs, the unconscious man slung back on Erik’s shoulder.

They rounded a corner when they reached the first floor, the sound of the music getting louder and louder, the people more and more as they neared the entrance.

“Don’t chug a bottle of Bacardi unless you want to end up like this guy,” Kelsey faked a chuckle and said to a group who stared at them as they passed, pointing at the man over Erik’s shoulder, and the group laughed as they continued to walk towards the exit, Erik laughing alongside them.

“Nice,” he said, chuckling as they rushed out of the building.

“Just follow my lead,” Kelsey responded as they walked into the noisy crowd. “We got him so drunk!” she yelled audibly, and Erik cheered beside her, racing casually through the mounds of jumping people enjoying the strange cover of a popular song.

Erik threw the man in the backseat when they reached their getaway Volkswagen, Kelsey rushing into the passenger seat, and they drove away as quickly as they could, peering behind them if anyone was on their tail.

“We good?” he asked, chuckling victoriously as they sped up, swerving through the streets back onto the freeway.

“Looks like it,” Kelsey responded, checking the windows, beginning to chuckle herself, letting out a howl as her eyes confirmed that they were clear.

“Too fuckin’ easy,” Erik laughed. “You know, you and I, we could take the Avengers down if we wanted to, I’m just saying.”

Kelsey laughed back, the windows rolled down and the radio blasting an upbeat song as they drove through the highway, grins on their faces for nearly the entire ride home. Laughter continued to vibrate through the air as they went from city to city back to New York’s streets, everything they spoke of just reminding Kelsey who she was with and why they shared history that she treasured, why she missed him when she left.

The last time she had this much fun with him was years ago, but it didn’t feel that way. Everything about Erik resonated with her in a way very few people could. They vibrated in the same wavelength, the same direction, and it had always been that way.

“She was cute,” Kelsey recalled herself telling him one night at a grungy bar, about five years ago as he sat back down on the table she was sharing with a few others from assassin school. It was their favorite bar. The decor was tacky, the music was never classy, everything was grimy, but the beer was always cold, and for kids like them with nowhere to go to, nothing else in their lives except each other, it was enough. More than enough.

“Nah,” Erik shrugged. “She got a bourgeoisie vibe I didn’t like,” he said, gesturing in the air for emphasis.

“Yeah, I was just trying not to be a dickhead,” chuckled Kelsey. “She was like, talking like this and I could, like, hear it from here,” she added in her best valley girl accent and Erik burst into laughter.

“Do not talk like that, I’m gonna have stop hanging out with you if you talk like that.”

“Yeah fuckin’ right, like you could,” Kelsey laughed, taking a swig of her beer.

Erik smiled at her, leaning against the dirty wooden table, swinging his own half empty beer in his hands, looking right at Kelsey. “Yeah, I couldn’t. We still got plans.”

“You got plans?” Anika, another friend of theirs, asked, a cigarette on her lips.

“Yeah, we’re just gonna redistribute wealth and stuff,” nodded Kelsey and Erik laughed.

He nodded along with her as Anika laughed back. “Just take down the government, give the money back to the masses and stuff, casual saturday night plans,” he smiled at Kelsey.

He was smiling at her the exact same way now, as they finally drove through Manhattan that afternoon, one arm on the steering wheel, looking a little more handsome than he used to be. Maybe it was just the light. They were still laughing about something when the Avengers Tower loomed into view, their stomachs hurting, their cheeks a little sore, their minds a little too free and too happy for two people who had just kidnapped a man in the backseat. The big A in the sky snapped Kelsey back into reality, and she stopped chuckling for a moment to check on the passed out man in their backseat.

“I forgot we were on a mission,” Kelsey said, the remnants of the laughter still in her voice.

“We were?”

Kelsey took one glance at him and they burst into laughter again. The inexplicable, outrageous kind.

“You know,” Erik said as the building came even closer into view, “I haven’t laughed like this in a long time.” Then he looked at her. Kelsey looked at him back, smiling.

“That’s because you haven’t seen me around,” she said, chuckling again.   
Erik laughed. “Oh, wow!”

“Did I lie though?” she grinned, pulling out her Stark phone as they started to pull up into the building and calling the tower to let them into the garage. When they secured a parking spot, Erik got out of the car and threw the unconscious man over his shoulder while Kelsey stepped out of the Volkswagen, walking together into the elevator.

Kelsey was pressing the button for the 35th floor when Erik spoke again.

“I missed you, I think,” he said nonchalantly, like there wasn’t a man over his shoulder. He made it look easy.

“I know I missed you,” Kelsey replied like it wasn’t a big deal, but she knew what he meant. She knew what he was trying to do.   
“You know what I’m saying right?” he said. Kelsey looked at him. He looked at her. “Let’s go get dinner some time. Not on a mission, just dinner.”

Her eyes stayed on him, on his perfect brown skin, his lips, his coiled dreadlocks, the structure of his body, all so familiar from the past they shared, yet so fresh from the time they spent away from each other after knowing each other so well.

She almost said yes, but Kelsey couldn’t stop thinking about Bucky.


	15. Chapter 15

This was a new feeling for him, but Bucky knew exactly what it was. He wasn’t familiar to it, he had never experienced it before, but as soon as he felt the pang of jealousy punch him in the gut, he knew what the son of a bitch was called.

“You know me well, you know what I’m talking about,” Kelsey’s voice rang from the other side of the room, and he could hear her giggle–the giggle that wasn’t because she found something funny, but because she knew what the sound did to a guy’s chest, and it would’ve worked on him–it nearly did– but the giggle wasn’t directed at him, and the fact that it wasn’t was like a slap in the face.

A hard, hard pang of jealousy hit him again as he glanced towards her, and she was leaning towards Erik, who was looking at her so intently, his eyes glancing every now and then to Kelsey’s lips with intentions Bucky didn’t like.

He had never felt this before, never to this degree.

Bucky’s last girlfriend was in 1940. “Doll,” he’d call her, short for Dolores. It was a short thing, just a couple of months, and she was beautiful, European descent, gorgeous red hair and freckles, curvy, and when men would talk to her in bars, it didn’t bother Bucky. The notion that they’d one day steal her away from him seemed even more like a relief than anything he’d be afraid of. 

The one before that was a budding actress, blonde, blue eyes. The one before was an older lady who had a thing for young gentlemen, and the one before her was another blonde, just as beautiful. Every single one of them was a little too obsessed with him, every single one smitten enough with Bucky to bring pre-serum Steve a begrudging date, but Bucky had never been head over heels for any of them, no matter how sweet or beautiful.

And the first girl he was head over heels obsessed with was on the opposite side of the room, being hit on by a guy who could by all means, steal her away. He probably has, he realized, after all the missions they had gone to in a week, all their time alone in the cars, laughing like no one else in the world existed.

They were all hanging out that night, one of the few nights in the tower when most of them weren’t working, and by then the lounging area was filled with tipsy, light-hearted chatter, most of them settled into the couches. Erik shouldn’t have been there, but he stayed for a quick meal until it stretched into a few drinks, and it turned into hours, with him and Kelsey tucked into one corner of the room, drunkenly chuckling as they talked, the rest of them scattered across the area, huddled over in their own lively conversation. Bucky, Steve and Sam were hanging out by the chairs outside with a couple of beers, and every time Bucky would come back into the room to get a fresh drink from the fridge, his eyes would immediately fall on Kelsey and Erik, sitting a little too close to just be friendly.

“You alright, Buck?” It was Steve, walking just closely behind him, taking a drink from the fridge and checking Bucky’s line of sight. “Oh,” he said, when he spotted Erik playfully grabbing onto Kelsey’s arm, talking animatedly. The girl didn’t budge, and instead, laughed with him.

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” he said, taking his attention away from the two across the room. He took a drink from the fridge as well as Steve sighed, walking back out the balcony with his friend behind him.

He smiled at Bucky. “Well, if she isn’t sleeping with you, then...”   
Bucky’s attention shot up, his chest tightening as they sat back down outside. “You think they’re sleeping together?”

“It’s Kelsey,” Steve shrugged. “She just fools around like that.”

“And have you  _ seen _ that guy?” Sam added, taking a swig of his drink.

Bucky sighed deeply. “Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.”

The two others chuckled, as Bucky looked at both of them and rolled his eyes playfully, but his heart was constricting a little bit, the image in his head bitterly taking form just to torture him, just to make it hurt. Kelsey’s bare chest, the faint curvature of her abs, and the slope of her waist and her hips, it was like a curse how well he had memorized it and touched it and felt it in the months they were together, because now, he could picture it so well with Erik, their sweaty, writhing bodies, laughing with all their goddamn history together, talking about things Bucky could never relate to. It sent shudder ups his heart, the image burnt on his mind as he stared out into the Manhattan skyline, forcing his drink down idly.

_ Wow _ , he heard Kelsey say in his mind again, _ Bucky and I never connected the way you and I did, Erik.  _

“Bucky.” It was Steve’s voice that disturbed his sad daydream, his surrounding coming back to his senses, the sound of the music inside the house, the breeze of New York in the nighttime, the blinking of the skyscraper’s lights.

“Yeah?” he responded.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes,” said Bucky, lying, “but just in case, repeat everything from the beginning.”

Steve rolled his eyes, laughing, and Sam picked up the conversation in his place. “What’s going on with you two?”

Bucky shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. It was true, and hurt him that it was. “So there’s really nothing I can do about… that.” He gestured inside the tower in the direction of Kelsey, taking a sip of his beer.

“It was your choice to break things off with her,” Steve reasoned out.

“I didn’t mean forever,” sighed Bucky, “I was just trying to get rid of the memory of every lie she told me when she was undercover.”

Steve looked at him. “She doesn’t know that, though.”

“And also,” Sam chimed in, gesturing to his arms, his beer bottle hanging from his fingers, “you know what I’m saying? The brother’s an  _ adonis. _ ” Steve burst out laughing and Bucky couldn’t help but laugh either–a pained, giving up laugh. Sam continued. “Barnes, you’re very handsome and all, but…”

“Yeah,” Steve said defensively, throwing an arm over Bucky’s shoulder as he took a sip of his beer. “You used to get all the girls back then!”

“I can believe that,” Sam nodded.

“Thanks, guys,” Bucky groaned out sarcastically, and the other two laughed.

Steve continued. “No, really, maybe this is just karmic retribution for every girl you left.”

Bucky finished taking a sip out of his beer and chuckled. “But does karmic retribution have to look  _ that _ good?” he asked, chuckling in pain, the two men beside him laughing along. “I mean, even you’re in love with him, Sam.”

“I’m not even about to deny that.”

They chuckled for a while, but fell into silence just as quickly, and the only sound among them was the drinking and the music and some dull noises from the street far below. Bucky was thankful to be there, to know he was pretty safe, all things considered, to spend his days healing again in a perfect tower, but he was mostly thankful he was with Steve again. The anger inside him from finding out he had been lied to for months was so much easier to deal with because his best friend, his brother, the man he hadn’t seen in 70 years was around. It didn’t make seeing the only girl he treasured being stolen away by the most handsome man in the world any less painful, but it did become easier to deal with.

“You really like her huh?”

It was Steve who spoke again after the silence.

Bucky turned to him. Laughing, because  _ God _ , he did. So much. Too much, actually, it wasn’t fair that the only time he had ever felt like this, it had to be with a girl who was sent on a mission to spy on him.

“You were never hung up on any of the girls before,” Steve continued when Bucky didn’t speak. “Even the last one. The redhead.”

“Dolores,” Bucky said, nodding and chuckling.

Sam laughed. “Ooh, I wanna hear about this story.”

“There’s no story.”

Steve started laughing. “Ah, Sam, Sergeant Barnes got  _ all _ the women, I’m telling you,” he said as Sam listened enthusiastically, Bucky groaning in protest but listening all the same as Cap delved into every embarrassing story about his love life, every bad decision he ever made that hurt girls who were nothing but sweet to him. It was a while since he was that happy and at peace, the few hours of bliss, just forgetting everything that ailed him. He and Steve couldn’t get drunk, but still, there was nothing better than a few bottles of beer with his closest friends overlooking the city skyline, music just dully beating underneath the sound of their laughter and happy chatter. Sam excused himself after a while, slurring his goodbyes, leaving Bucky alone with Steve.

“I still can’t thank you enough for everything you did to me, Steve,” Bucky said quietly after the laughter had died down and silence resumed.

Steve looked at him. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I don’t know where I’d be if...”

“If I hadn’t let you beat me up during the whole Triskelion thing?” Steve smiled.

Bucky chuckled. “If you didn’t come find me after the whole thing, if you hadn’t sent...”  _ Kelsey. If he hadn’t sent Kelsey.  _ Bucky continued. “You know. I don’t know where I’d be. I’d probably be looking for you, trying to kill you,” he said, chuckling at the last part even though the idea wasn’t funny.

“Yeah, well,” Steve looked at him, shrugging with a smile. “We are kind of friends.”   
Bucky attempted another chuckle. “You’re risking a lot, just letting me be here at all.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he replied. “Besides, I’m with you till the end of the line, remember?”

Bucky smiled.

“Just kiss already.”

It was Natasha, hanging by the doorway, her smile drunk, but a bottle still hung from her hands. Then she looked at Bucky. “Your girlfriend’s already kissing someone else, anyway.”

Bucky’s stomach crumpled a bit, and Steve asked the question on his mind. “Is she really?”

“No, I’m exaggerating,” Nat said. “He left like, half an hour ago. Come on, we’re trying to see if Bruce turns into the Hulk while he’s drunk.” 

“That’s not safe!”

Steve stood up, eyebrows furrowed, both of them tuning into the noise back inside the tower, only realizing now the laughter that had ensued inside. Bucky and Steve followed Nat into the lounging area, and while Bruce lying down on the floor, laughing was the first thing they saw when they walked in, it was as if Bucky’s eyes were trained to look for Kelsey next. She was laughing hard, positively bursting with laughter, as she flung throw pillows at Bruce, everyone huddled in a circle. Sam, who supposedly went to bed a few minutes ago was laughing beside Kelsey and Nat, Vision and Wanda calmly chuckling from the couch.

“Come on, guys, break it up,” Steve said, walking across the floor and helping Bruce up.

“Boo!” Kelsey threw her pillow gently at Steve. “Captain America sucks!” Steve only looked at her, pointing a finger jokingly as everyone laughed and boo-ed along as Bruce got up, walking over to the fridge to get some water, Steve proceeding to turn off the music.

“You suck, Steve,” Nat said, stumbling around the room, everyone getting up and fixing away everything they had messed up. “I’m going to bed.” 

“Oh, God, it’s 3:00 am?” Sam said.

“What?” Kelsey stood up, checking out his watch, groaning as she walked to the kitchen counter, saying goodnight to Nat, Wanda and Vision on the way.

Her head was thumping, aching in a way, the chattering around her dull from the alcohol, and she wobbled to the fridge, and she could barely feel Steve steadying her as she pulled herself some water, drinking it hastily, almost choking on her water as she turned around, because Bucky was there. That was it. Bucky was there, and he was so handsome, putting away beer bottles, smiling at Sam and Steve as they said goodnight.

“Nice beard,” Kelsey said to him, the echoing around the room reminding her they were alone. She was smiling at him, staring at him, at the short scruff he had allowed himself to grow. Kelsey wondered what it would be like to kiss him when he was unshaven to  _ that _ degree. God, she missed kissing him.

She missed kissing in general, she missed sex, and she easily could’ve relieved herself with all the advances Erik was making, all the teasing about their past, but now, there was a Bucky, and if there was any chance she was getting back what she used to have with him, she was taking it.

“I grew it myself,” Bucky replied, smiling at Kelsey as she sipped a little more water and walked towards him, leaning by the front of the counter.

She smiled back. “You had a good time tonight? I barely saw you, you were smooching it up with Steve.”

“No,” Bucky said, “you didn’t see me because you were smooching it up.”

Kelsey sighed. “Erik? Seriously?”

“Nice one, by the way,” Bucky added. “He’s very handsome.”

Kelsey furrowed her eyebrows, standing up a little straighter, and if she wasn’t as drunk as she was, she would’ve calmly explained what was on her mind. But she wasn’t sober; she was heavily drunk, and her words came out a little angrier. “Are you kidding me right now?” she hissed at him, Bucky obviously surprised by the hostility in her tone. “I’ve been doing nothing but wait for you to get over the fact that I was only lying to you because it was a mission, Bucky. I get it, you’re hurt that I lied to you, but right now you’re just making up reasons not to forgive me.”

Her voice echoed in the empty room, the sound resonating into Bucky’s ears.

“You think I’m making this up?” he asked, his head beginning to throb, a vein in his neck popping as he began to raise his voice.

“Come on, Bucky, you’re acting like I was committing some unforgivable sin when you were doing the same thing,” she groaned. “Why are you so mad at me? Were  _ you _ planning on ever telling me you were an assassin for a Nazi terrorist group?” 

He looked at her hard. “Of course I was.” He breathed out. “Jesus Christ, of course I was. I had a whole fucking thing planned out, did you know that?” He sighed deeply, exasperated. “Kelsey, you lied to me. From the very beginning.”

“It was a mission,” she retorted again, her chest tightening knowing Bucky was right. “It wasn’t my choice, why can’t you just...”

“Why can’t I just forget?” Bucky was looking at her like she was stupid. “I spent the last 50 years being lied to and manipulated by something I thought was for good.” His voice was shaky, breaking a little but the anger was still palpable. “I trusted Hydra. I gave my goddamn all to their cause, and I find out I’ve been brainwashed this entire time. You don’t know what that’s like, so you don’t know what it’s like to have it happen all over again, except this time, my heart is completely in it.”

“Bucky...”

“That’s why, alright?” he huffed. “That’s why I can’t  _ just _ . I trusted you. I can’t sleep in the same bed with anyone, ever,” he said quietly, his eyes on her, “but I slept next to you, and I slept… I slept without dreaming of that lab in Siberia for the first goddamn time.”

Kelsey couldn’t move. She was about to cry, and she knew it, so her brain jumped around, looking around the room, thinking of anything else  _ but _ Bucky standing in front of her, looking beaten down and hurt. 

“I’m sorry,” she finally muttered, looking at him. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” he sighed.

Kelsey couldn’t keep her eyes away from him. She had never seen him so sad, so beaten down, like he needed a hug, and she almost stepped forward before she realized she couldn’t. 

“I miss you, Bucky.” Her voice was nearly a whisper, but it was the best she could give him for how much she ached right at that moment, how much she lost when he decided not to be with her.

Bucky looked up at her, sizing her up before he spoke, taking deep breaths. “I miss you so much,” he said quietly, his eyes on her, “but I don’t think we can just pick up where we left off.”

Kelsey looked at him, nodding, even though in her head it was  _ no, no, no, please _ , repeatedly, her head thumping to the beat of its plea. When he said goodnight, she didn’t leave the floor with him, and she stayed on the balcony, watching over the city, her stomach and heart in disarray, wondering why it hurt this much, wondering how it had ever come to this. 

“Stop it! Stop!” Kelsey was screaming at Bucky, absolutely bursting with laughter around a few weeks ago, in his bedroom in Havana, as a familiar party song blared through the speakers and he began to dance around, imitating how she had danced the night before at a club they went to.

Bucky grinned and didn’t stop. “Why? This is what you look like!”

“No,” she groaned, rolling over in bed and laughing, covering her bare body with his blanket as Bucky continued to laugh.

“Seriously, look at me, this is scarily accurate!”

Kelsey rolled over again to look at him, dancing so goofily it was impossible how attractive she still found him, how perfect he looked, mimicking her dance moves so unnaturally, his hair flopping all around, his sweatpants arched around his waist, v-line disappearing down the waistband, his metal arm dancing around.

“Okay, fine,” she said, looking for her shirt and underwear, pulling it on as his dancing slowed down to a pause as he watched her hastily get dressed.

“What?” 

“You wanna see how you dance?” Kelsey asked, threatening him as she stood in front of Bucky, who promptly stopped dancing as she did.

Bucky laughed. “Don’t you do it.”

Kelsey did, dancing the way he did after a few shots, laughing as Bucky groaned, watching her in horror, in embarrassment. 

“Oh, God,” Bucky said through tufts of laughter. “Stop. Oh my God.” He groaned, seeming to not be able to look away, his face turned red as Kelsey bounced around, amused by his shame, laughing all the while, until he stopped and tackled her into a hug so she’d stop. She could so easily untangle herself from him with a few moves, but she chose not to, and she let him hug her so tightly, push her back into bed and wrap himself around her, laughing hard.

At the time, she thought she was winning. Hot guy, great sex, no feelings, all while on a mission – it was the perfect arrangement for her, but she should’ve known it was too good to last, too good to be the truth. Kelsey didn’t know she was falling in love with him at the time, and she sure as hell didn’t expect to be hurt like  _ this _ when they broke up. She chuckled at herself, tears drying from the wind. They were never really even together, ‘break up’ isn’t the right term. 

She was so used to loss. She’d lost virtually everyone important in her life, that when she thought of this day coming she thought it would be more like a little sting to lose Bucky, not the complete trainwreck she was experiencing now. 

Did she really expect anything less from the Winter Soldier?


End file.
